Months after it was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the income-tax appeals are all set to go faceless from Friday.

The income tax department has already rolled out pan-India faceless assessment facilities for all taxpayers from August 13. The Centre hopes that the faceless system will ease compliance and widen the tax base

India introduced a faceless assessment of tax on a pilot basis in October 2019, taking up about 58,000 cases. Of these cases, orders were passed in 11,000 cases and about 4,000-5,000 orders will be issued soon.

Faceless assessments will require a structural change for tax authorities as well as significant infrastructure support. The new regime calls for fresh training of officers in a bid to streamline assessments. Under faceless scrutiny assessment, a central computer picks up tax returns for scrutiny based on risk parameters and mismatch and then allots them randomly to a team of officers.

The objectives sought to be achieved are exponentially faster clearance, a reduced interface between taxpayers and officers, and enhanced ease of doing business. Under the new regime, all cases other than those assigned to the central charges (serious frauds, major tax evasion, sensitive and search matters, black money and benami cases) and international tax charges are to be done through faceless assessment.

Implementation of a faceless scheme would eliminate the interface between the income tax authority and the assessees. It would also optimise utilisation of the resources through economies of scale and functional specialisation.