Sunday, February 5 2006 11:48 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The coming Budget is likely to propose a facility for anywhere, anytime filing and processing of income tax returns.

By a click of the mouse, tax assesses would be able to file their returns from anywhere in the country with the setting up of a single national database linked through computers with all 742 income tax offices in 510 cities.

This is part of a slew of IT measures that the department has initiated to make interface with tax payers convenient and improve tax administration, official sources said.

Towards setting up of national database, migration of existing application software from 2-tier to 3-tier and consolidation of 36 regional databases into single database is under progress, the sources said.

Setting up of national database will introduce jurisdiction-free filing and processing of returns, all India data matching and centralised MIS reporting, they added.

National Data Centre with appropriate Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery site is being set up to house the single national database. The computerisation programme in the department has three major components- e-delivery of taxpayer services, augmentation of departmental computer infrastructure and setting up of Tax Information Network (TIN).

The department is also providing PAN-related services like online filing of applications, immediate allotment of the number and web tracking of status of applications.