I-T dept to appoint 7600 more tax return preparers

New Delhi: Every district of the country will soon have at least one trained personnel to assist small taxpayers in filing ITRs, with the Income Tax Department proposing to appoint 7,600 additional experts whose services will also be available on mobile application. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the apex policy-making body of the tax department, has decided to enlarge the ambit of the 2006 Tax Return Preparer Scheme (TRPS) by making the service "digital" and covering all the 708 districts of the country.

"It is proposed to provide a sufficient number of Tax Return Preparers (TRPs) in every district by scaling up of number of TRPs from a total 5,400 to 13,000 in the country," according to an I-T department blueprint.

"It is proposed that every district in the country should have at least three TRPs," it added.

A senior official working on the project said the aim was to ensure hassle-free and 'from home' tax filing service to assessees without they taking pains to go to a Chartered Accountant or a person who has expertise in filing tax returns.