Moments so Far ...

I was sick and resting on this Eid, a day before Ganesh Chaturthi, with blanket over my head. A call came on land line for me and my daughter gave the call to me. He : I am from Aditya Birla Group. [ I guessed he must one of those agents selling health insurance/ financial planning/ mutual funds or my latest relationship managers ] I :  Quickly tell me. He: I am from Income Tax department. [ By now I got confused and his temper went up in well rehearsed manner. I hope Aditya Birla is not training their troops to indulge in scaring unresponsive prospects.] He: I am SK Nanda, a senior income tax officer. Is this the way you talk to me? I am coming to your home. Is this your address? Is this your name? Tell me your house nearest landmark. [ I was really confused with the income tax stuff as Income tax department has recently sent notice for no reason, Our CA explained that with computerization the frequency of notice sending has increased and response ...

I desired to go online to file returns. Its a very funny process. The government has already deducted the tax at source. Your employer has all your tax inputs. Still you would go through the process of collecting Form-16, file returns, print out form-V acknowledgement, send it back to Income tax. Every year, year on year. Is there a better way to optimize this mess and save some taxpayers money to reduce IT staff and this silly process? I put the request on Brigade Gardenia Yahoo Group and promptly neighbourhood responded and urged to go for taxsmile. I did. I tried to go through their demo, but even with BSNL broadband they were slow. Gave up. Registered and chose Gold. Realised that only additional benefit in GOLD plan would be they sending the ITR-V on your behalf instead of you sending it to IT department directly. In both cases you would need to courier either to Bombay taxsmile address or IT Bangalore address. I thought Bangalore would be a cheaper option. This was on saturday. T...