E-Assessment—A Digital Solution for Promoting e-Governance

Abstract

Department of Commercial Taxes, Government of Uttar Pradesh, follows one extract from VidurNiti that quotes “The King should collect his taxes without hurting his subjects even as a bee collects honey without harming the flowers”. Considering the same, one digital solution VarnijYakar Automation System (VYAS), has been designed and developed for computerization of various services of the department. A person (dealer), who does trading in Uttar Pradesh State, needs to get registered and acquire a Trader Identification Number (TIN) from the Department, if the dealer is liable to pay taxes according to the legal rules of trading. Enforcement division of the department carries out the audit and assessment of dealers with the objective of reducing tax evasion and enhance the State Revenue. E-Assessment is an important automation under VYAS for the purpose of assessing the registered dealers. The assessment is done on the basis of the returns filed by them with respect the sales/purchases done as part of trading in the state of Uttar Pradesh . Integration of E-Assessment and Recovery Challan/Certificate (RC) Registers automation completes the entire assessment procedure. This has eliminated the repetitive task of typing same language for issuing notice/orders for different dealers. It ensures timely delivery of notices/orders to dealers that enable them to take appropriate actions in time so as not to receive penalty or adverse consequences therein. Recovery Challan certificates are issued with raised additional demand as per the returns filed in respective assessment year. Various registers related to assessment like RC-Recovery Challan (Register R3), Court Cases for appeal against RC (Register R6), RC which have got returned (Register R27), Issued notices (R5A register), and Issued orders (R5B register) are also generated. Digitally signed notices and orders are served to dealers on its registered mobile number and email as URL, clicking on which, the notice/order gets displayed to them which they can save as PDF on their mobiles or desktop. The issued notices, order and RCs are made available on personalized Services Portal of dealer. In the country, Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the only State to implement Online Assessment with the feature of issuing digitally signed orders/notices online. The state unit of National Informatics Centre (NIC) (www.nic.in) has extended technical support for this challenging e-governance project.