As the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) approaches, the Income Tax Department’s e-Filing portal has come under fire from taxpayers and professionals due to frequent service outages. A tweet by Abhas Halakhandi, a prominent finance commentator, highlighted the growing frustration among users who are struggling to access the portal during critical hours.
“Thousands of manhours [are] being wasted with every downtime across the country,” Halakhandi wrote on X (formerly Twitter), tagging the official handle of the Income Tax Department and urging them to improve the performance of the portal.
A screenshot shared in the post showed a “Service Unavailable” error on the official income tax e-filing website, which read:
“This service is currently unavailable. It may be temporarily overloaded or under maintenance. Please try again later.”
The timing couldn’t be worse. With lakhs of taxpayers and tax professionals rushing to meet the July 31 filing deadline, even a short outage can disrupt work across the country and increase pressure on both individuals and firms.
Social media was flooded with similar complaints using hashtags like #INCOMETAXPORTAL, #ITRFiling, and #DigitalIndia, with many users pointing out the irony of digital transformation slogans when essential services remain unreliable.
Background:
The new income tax portal was launched in June 2021 with the promise of being more user-friendly and efficient. However, it has been plagued by technical glitches, including login issues, delayed processing, and intermittent outages — especially during peak seasons.
Industry Reaction:
Tax professionals have long demanded a more robust infrastructure, especially during filing season. Some called for an extension of the deadline if portal stability isn’t restored soon.
Official Response:
As of now, there has been no official statement from the Income Tax Department addressing the outage or plans for resolution.
With public patience wearing thin and pressure mounting on the authorities, timely action will be crucial to avoid a major disruption in the tax filing cycle.
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