Call Expert home for filing income tax return

The Income Tax Department has started two new schemes where any tax payer can seek online help or call an expert home for a nominal fee to help file income tax returns. Both the initiatives are named as ‘Register for Home Visit’ and ‘Online Tax Help’.

The new Tax Return Preparer Scheme is an initiative of the income tax department to help small and marginal tax payers in filing their returns, the finance ministry said in a statement.

“This scheme is applicable to individual and Hindu undivided family (HUF) tax payers who can take assistance of Tax Return Preparers (TRPs) in preparation and filing of their income tax returns,” it said.

The tax payers, who choose to register for home visit, will be asked to indicate in short the help required by them and a convenient date and time when the Tax Return Preparer (TRP) can visit them for assistance.

The TRPs are allowed to collect fee from the taxpayers according to the TRP notification subject to a maximum of Rs 250 for a return preparation.

The home visit facility of TRPs has been made available in few cities such as Bangalore, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi and Patna, and will be extended to other cities in the next phase.

For online help, the taxpayer can fill in his tax related query along with his contact details. The query will be answered by tax experts through Email or phone within 24 hours.