Income Tax department starts SMS alert service to inform about TDS deductions

The Income Tax department will send SMS alerts regarding quarterly Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) deductions to around 2.5 crore salaried tax payers through a facility launched here on Monday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) will soon offer this facility on a monthly basis."Tax payers will benefit if they receive information through use of technology. So they can match the office salary slip and the SMS and at the end of the fiscal he will be clear about any possible tax dues," Jaitley told reporters here after launching the SMS alert service. The salaried class cannot afford to pay tax twice or indulge in litigations, and so should be kept updated about their TDS deductions, he added."The CBDT will soon extend this SMS facility to another 4.4 crore non-salaried taxpayers," a finance ministry statement here said. "The frequency of SMS alerts will be increased, once the process for filing TDS returns is streamlined to receive such information on a real-time basis," it added. The CBDT further advised taxpayers who wish to receive such SMS alerts to update their mobile numbers in their e-filing account.IANS