Income Tax department has activated the Aadhaar and net banking-based e-filing verification system for taxpayers to file the first appeal before a tax officer, on similar lines of online ITR filing. In order to reduce the interface between taxman and the taxpayer, the department has recently operationalised the maiden facility on its official e-filing portal.

The Electronic Verification Code (EVC) works by way of generating a personalised OTP by using the Aadhaar database or the net banking identity of a filer or entity. The OTP is subsequently sent to the personal email id or mobile phone of the filer for validation and subsequent process of filing.

The IT department has four stages of appeal mechanism for the assessees to put forth their grievance beginning with the Commissioner of IT (Appeals), the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT), the High Court and finally the Supreme Court.

The new form is applicable for the CIT (Appeal) fora and those taxpayers who file e-returns will be eligible to use this new facility. The new format for filing of appeals is more structured, objective, systematic and aligned with the current provisions of the Income Tax Act.