A year after launch, income tax filing portal faces another glitch

The Income Tax Department on Tuesday directed India's second-largest software services provider Infosys to fix the issue relating to the search functionality of the e-filing website.

"Issue relating to the search functionality of the e-filing website has come to our notice. The Income Tax Department is seized of the matter. @Infosys has been directed to look into it & @Infosys has confirmed that they are resolving the issue on priority," the I-T department tweeted while tagging Infosys chief executive Salil Parekh.

The technical glitch comes exactly a year after the e-filing portal went live on June 7, 2021.

Infosys bagged the contract from the I-T department to develop the new e-filing portal in 2019. The government had approved the project with a total outlay of ₹4,242 crore.

In August last year, the finance ministry had summoned the Infosys CEO to explain about the continued glitches faced by taxpayers on the e-filing portal. After receiving several complaints from taxpayers, the government had to extend the due date of filing tax returns and related forms.

Just last month, the government had to extend the GST payment deadline for April after taxpayers faced technical glitches on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) portal, which is also maintained by Infosys. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had directed Infosys to address certain tech glitches with the GST portal at the earliest.

Infosys was awarded the contract worth ₹1,380 crore to build and maintain the GSTN platform.

Meanwhile, Infosys has hiked the remuneration of its chief executive officer Salil Parekh by 88%, citing strong performance of the company and increase in shareholder value under his leadership. Parekh was re-appointed as chief executive officer and managing director of the IT giant for a period of five years.

Almost 97% of the increase in Parekh's proposed annual remuneration is linked to performance. Under the revised remuneration, the Infosys CEO's fixed compensation shall constitute less than 15% of this total compensation at target (compared to 23% under his current terms). An annual salary of ₹8 crore will be payable as fixed pay.

Additionally, 70% of Parekh's performance-based compensation is given in the form of restricted stock unit (RSU) or performance stock unit (PSU) grants, depending on the performance of the company's share price.

"The company competes with global peers, particularly in North America and Europe, with almost 87% of the company's revenue coming from these geographies, and therefore, Salil's remuneration has to be determined keeping in view international benchmarks," Infosys had said while justifying the CEO’s salary hike.

Infosys has signed large deals with a total value of $39 billion for the four-year period from fiscal 2019 to FY22. The company has more than doubled the share of digital revenue from 25.5% in FY18 to 57.0% in FY22. It has also increased the number of $100 million clients from 20 in FY18 to 38 in FY22.