New Delhi [India], 24 July (ANI): Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday urged officials to shift focus from resolving disputes to preventing them and highlighted record-breaking numbers in return filing and grievance redressal.
Speaking at the 167th Income Tax Day celebrations in New Delhi, Sitharaman said the Department’s mandate has broadened well beyond revenue collection to encompass fairness, ease of doing business, and citizen-centric service.
The e-Filing portal, bolstered this year with expanded computing capacity and bandwidth, handled over one crore taxpayer interactions in a single day, peaking at around 1.6 crore.
As of July 21, more than 3.2 crore Income Tax Returns had been filed with 94 per cent verified and 60 per cent processed. Over 1.3 crore refund claims have been received, of which 96 per cent are verified and 40 per cent processed.
The is first Income Tax Day since the new Income Tax Act, 2025, came into force.
The Minister stressed the need to further cut processing timelines and that faster refunds bolster taxpayer confidence and liquidity.
The Department resolved 94 per cent of nearly 78,000 grievances filed through CPGRAMS in FY 2025-26, with average disposal time dropping from 57 to 28 days and two-thirds of cases closed within three weeks.
On the e-Nivaran platform, 95 per cent of 3.5 lakh grievances were disposed, with average resolution time falling to 42 days.
The Minister emphasised a five-point framework for the Department – Recognise, Respond, Redress, Reflect and Reform – urging officers to treat grievances as opportunities for institutional learning rather than mere complaints to be closed out. “A taxpayer is not merely an assessee; a taxpayer is a citizen and a partner in India’s development,” the Minister said.
On tax certainty, the Minister said pendency had fallen by over 34,000 cases to 5.4 lakh appeals, while 6,000 departmental appeals were withdrawn following revised monetary thresholds announced in Budget 2024-25, freeing up resources for cases involving substantial questions of law. Three pillars — clarity, consistency and continuous institutional learning, should underpin the push toward fewer disputes, the Minister said.
She noted progress on new office complexes in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Noida, and announced that the new Aayakar Sindhu office complex in Mumbai would be inaugurated in two days. Alongside physical infrastructure, the Minister called for stronger training in AI, data analytics, forensic accounting, international taxation, transfer pricing, digital assets and cybersecurity.
Closing the address, the Minister outlined seven guiding principles for the Department: deepening voluntary compliance, simplifying taxpayer experience, strengthening tax certainty, responsibly harnessing technology, building institutional excellence, strengthening public trust, and embracing continuous improvement, framing them as mutually reinforcing goals on the path to Viksit Bharat by 2047.
The Minister concluded by thanking the Department’s officers and staff for their service, invoking the institution’s evolution “from paper files… to intelligent digital platforms.” (ANI)
Related reading
