Income tax returns website not working? Here is IMPORTANT news for taxpayers; know now

Income tax website not working? Amazingly, this is the question taxpayers are asking online because the income tax website was down.

Income tax website not working? Much to taxpayers relief, Infosys has announced that the income tax website outage is finally over. (Arvind Yadav/HT PHOTO)

Shocking as it may sound, but yes, income tax website not working is the question that taxpayers have been searching for online. They are desperate to pay their tax, but the income tax portal has not been working. Income tax website was down since August 21. For this income tax website outage, the government is asking tech mega corporation Infosys, which had developed it and was in charge of, some tough questions. A website being down for long periods is unheard of. Not only had the income tax website crashed, earlier it had numerous problems too after launch, with many taxpayers complaining that it was charging fees that it was not supposed to. The outage was so bad that it even forced the Finance Ministry to call Infosys CEO Salil Parekh to Delhi to explain.

However, taxpayers should know that there is some relief now. It has been revealed that the income tax portal is back online after the outage. The new income tax website was launched over 2 months ago. On Sunday evening, Infosys announced that the income tax e-filing portal is back now and taxpayers can rush and file their returns fast. Infosys had tweeted about the income tax website being back up online late in the evening (around 9 PM) on Sunday. Here is what Infosys posted on Twitter, "The emergency maintenance of the @IncomeTaxIndia portal has concluded and the portal is live. We regret any inconvenience caused to taxpayers." This was posted by Infosys India Business unit.

Earlier, the Income Tax department too had taken to Twitter to make a big announcement. The tweet said that, as the tax portal has been down since August 21, the Ministry of Finance has summoned Infosys MD and CEO Salil Parekh on Monday over the problems that were being faced by the site. It tweeted, "Ministry of Finance has summoned Sh Salil Parekh,MD&CEO @Infosys on 23/08/2021 to explain to hon'ble FM as to why even after 2.5 months since launch of new e-filing portal, glitches in the portal have not been resolved. In fact,since 21/08/2021 the portal itself is not available."

Infosys bagged the prestigious contract to develop the new income tax website filing system in January, 2019. Infosys has been paid ₹164.5 crore for it till June, 2021. This was revealed by the Finance Ministry.

The reason why the new income tax website was launched was to cut the time taken and make the tax filing process easier for taxpayers to navigate and file their tax and get tax refunds.

The new income tax website was launched on June 7, 2021.