The Government has launched ‘e-Sahyog’ project on a pilot basis. It is aimed at reducing compliance cost, especially for small taxpayers. The objective of ‘e-Sahyog’ is to provide an online mechanism to resolve any mismatch or discrepancy in information as per Income-tax return of the tax payer viz-a-vis information received through AIR, CIB, TDS Statements etc., without visiting the Income Tax Office. Under this initiative the Department will provide an end to end e-service using SMS, e-mails to inform the taxpayers of the mismatch. The taxpayer has to login to the e-filing portal with his user-ID and Password to view mismatch related information and submit online response on the issue. The responses submitted online by the taxpayers will be processed and if the response is found satisfactory, the issue will be treated as closed. The taxpayer can check the updated status by logging into the e-filing portal. The tax payers shall also be informed of closure of cases through SMS and e-mail.

The Government has taken steps to address the genuine problems being faced by the tax payers and to reduce the unnecessary harassment meted out to them by the tax authorities.

The Government has set up PAN camps at some selective remote areas in the country. These PAN Camps have been organized through PAN services providers NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited (NDDL e-Gov) and UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Limited (UTIITSL).

NSDL e-Gov has organized PAN Camps at 23 locations across India in the months of October and November 2015. In these PAN camps, blank PAN forms have been made available alongwith instructions and guidelines for filling these forms. Duly filled-in forms along with prescribed documents are also collected in these camps.

UTIITSL has organized PAN camps at 30 locations across India in the months of October and November 2015. Organizing such camps is an ongoing process. The service providers will continue to hold more camps during the year to facilitate obtaining of PAN by persons residing in remote and semi urban areas.

This was stated by Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Automated mismatch resolution: online taxpayer responses enable closure of discrepancies and reduce compliance burden via e-filing notifications The e-Sahyog initiative provides an online mechanism to identify and notify taxpayers of mismatches between their income-tax return and third-party data sources; taxpayers receive alerts, log into the e-filing portal to view mismatch details and submit online responses, and where responses are satisfactory the issues are processed as closed with electronic status updates and notifications.