New Delhi, October 1: The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Tuesday launched the Documentation Identification Number (DIN) system. A total of 17,500 numbers generated on the first day. The DIN system will apply to all kind of communications, including the income tax department. The new system has been created as per the direction of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Income Tax Dept Receives Highest Ever 49,29,121 E-returns in a Single Day on August 31, Says CBDT.

Sitharaman also tweeted about the new development. She said, “From today, any communication from Income Tax Dept without a computer-generated DIN, be it a notice, letter, order & summon or any other correspondence, would be treated as invalid & shall be non-est in law or deemed to be as if it has never been issued.”

Nirmala Sitharaman's Tweet:

Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said, “Now from today onwards, all such communications with DIN would be verifiable on the e-filing portal and no communication would be issued manually without DIN except only if it is in the specified exceptional circumstances.” GST Collections Slip Below Rs 1 Lakh Crore in August, Second Decline in Year Amid Economic Slowdown.

In some exceptional cases of manual communication, it would be necessarily required to specify the reason of issuing such communication without DIN along with the date of obtaining written approval of the Chief Commissioner/Director General of Income Tax in a particular format. CBDT has specified that any communication issued manually under exceptional circumstances would have to be uploaded and regularised on the system portal within 15 days of its issuance.

CBDT has also stated that all pending assessment proceedings, where notices were earlier issued manually, prior to the DIN related Circular dated 14.08.2019 coming into existence, all such cases would be identified and notices so sent would be uploaded on ITBA by the end of this month, i.e., by October 31, 2019. In August this, the CBDT had said that a DIN would be attached to each of its communication from October 1.

According to PIB release, the DIN system is in pursuance of the directions by the Prime Minister in which he has asked the Department of Revenue to come up with specific measures to ensure that the honest taxpayers are not harassed and served better. The system is introduced for the convenience of the taxpayers by providing better services without any harassment.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Oct 01, 2019 11:35 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).