Monday 23 June 2014

Important announcement for Tax payers for updating contact details in e-Filing Portal.

Income-Tax Department uses the registered contact details (Mobile number & E-mail ID) for all communications related to e-Filing. It is mandatory that all tax payers must have a valid contact details registered in e-Filing portal.

It is noticed that many registered users are not having authenticated contact details in e-Filing or may have provided details of other persons for convenience. This prevents the Department from interacting directly with taxpayers on their personal email and Mobile.

Further, it has been observed that in many cases taxpayers are not able to reset their password since the email communication from the Department may be sent to their registered email or Mobile which may be different from the taxpayer’s personal email or mobile.

Hence, it is requested that all the e-Filing users may immediately update and authenticate their correct contact details so that the communication can be sent to the valid Mobile number and E-mail ID.

The process of updating and authenticating the contact details has been given below:
New User:
Provide the correct Mobile Number and Email ID during the Registration in the e-Filing portal, Activation link would be sent to the registered E-mail ID and a One Time Password (OTP also called PIN) is sent to the registered Mobile Number. User needs to Click on the Link provided in the E-mail and enter the OTP received in the mobile number for Successful activation of the registered user in e-Filing portal.

Registered User:
After the user logs in to the e-filing account, there will be a pop-up requesting the user to update the current Mobile number and E-mail ID. The user should update their personal Mobile number and Email so that the updated contact particulars are registered with the Department or confirm that the Mobile number and email ID already registered is their valid personal contacts.

Upon submitting the details, Department would immediately send OTPs (PIN1 & PIN2) to new mobile number and Email ID. The respective PINs- PIN1 and PIN2 received through Mobile number and E-mail ID should be entered by them in the respective input fields to authenticate that the email ID and mobile are correct. Upon successful validation the Mobile number and email ID would be updated in the taxpayer’s profile and the process would be complete.

The PIN1 and PIN2 would be valid only for the session – so taxpayers are advised not to close the webpage till PINs are entered and validated. In case of any difficulty or delay, the taxpayer can log in again and follow the same process to update the current contact details.

Note: Taxpayers are advised to follow the process mentioned above in the interest of the security of their e-filing account and to directly receive communication from the Department about status of processing and issue of refunds etc. This is a one-time process to validate the mobile number and email ID. However, whenever the taxpayer changes the Mobile Number or email ID in their Profile, the process will be repeated to ensure that the particulars provided are correct. One mobile number or email ID can be used for a maximum of 4 user accounts as the Primary Contact- Mobile Number and Email ID in e-Filing. This is to ensure that family members (not exceeding 4 separate users) not having personal email or mobile can be covered under a common email or mobile, but in general taxpayers should have their own unique email ID and Mobile registered with the Department. The taxpayer can enter any other person’s email or mobile number in addition as a Secondary Contact (without any restriction on the number of user accounts linked as a Secondary Contact). Using “Profile Settings -> My Profile” the taxpayer can select to include the Secondary Contact to also receive emails, alerts etc. Include the emails and SMS from the Income tax Department in the ‘safe list’ or ‘white list’ to prevent the communications from the Department from being blocked or rejected or sent to Spam folder. As a best practice, please update and authenticate the current contact and address details under “Profile Settings -> My Profile” after login to eFiling portal

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