Press Information Bureau

Government of India

Ministry of Finance

24-July-2012 16:57 IST

Income Tax Department Starts Two More Taxpayer Friendly Initiatives : ‘Register for Home Visit’ and ‘Online Tax Help’

In order to make the Income Tax Return filing experience even more convenient, the Income Tax Department has started two more taxpayer friendly initiatives ‘Register for Home Visit’ and ‘Online Tax Help’. To avail these facilities, a taxpayer must visit the website www.trpscheme.com and take help of trained professionals either online or at their homes. The taxpayer can choose between ‘online help’ or ‘home visit’.

On choosing the option of online tax help, the taxpayer can fill in his tax related query along with his contact details. The online query will be resolved by tax experts through Email or Phone within 24 hours.

The taxpayers who choose to register for home visit, will be asked to indicate in short the help required by them and a convenient date and time when the Tax Return Preparer (TRP) can visit them for assistance. The help desk will forward the query of the taxpayer to the nearest available TRP and fix the appointment telephonically. The TRP will then visit the taxpayer and render assistance. The facility is aimed to facilitate taxpayers in filing their return and thereby reducing their cost of compliance. The TRPs are allowed to collect fee from the taxpayers as per the TRP notification subject to a maximum of Rs. 250 per return preparation. The facility for home visit by TRPs has been presently made available in few cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Patna. The facility would be extended to more cities during the next phase.

The TRP scheme call center 1800-10-23738 may be called for further information regarding these initiatives.

The Tax Return Preparer Scheme is an initiative of the Income Tax Department to help small and marginal tax payers in filing of their Income Tax Returns. This Scheme is applicable to individual and HUF tax payers who can take assistance of TRPs in preparation and filing of their Income Tax Returns. The TRPs are self employed graduates who are trained by the Income Tax Department for filing of Income Tax Returns as well as quarterly TDS statements. The TRPs are authorized to collect nominal charges of Rs. 250 or less from the tax payers for preparing their Income Tax Returns. The Department also pays incentive to the TRPs for preparing of returns of tax payers which is a percentage of the total tax paid as per the returns prepared by the TRP subject to a maximum of Rs. 1000/-.

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DSM/SS/GN

Taxpayer assistance scheme expands with online help and scheduled home visits to simplify return preparation and reduce compliance costs. The Income Tax Department introduced two assistance channels-Online Tax Help for resolving taxpayer queries within 24 hours, and Register for Home Visit to connect taxpayers with trained Tax Return Preparers for in person assistance; TRPs are department trained, authorised to prepare returns and quarterly TDS statements, may charge a nominal preparer fee subject to a maximum, and receive departmental incentives, with home visits initially available in selected cities and call centre support for bookings.