About 97% of high-end corporate taxpayers have expressed high satisfaction with online tax payments but 62% believe that the objectives of faceless assessments and appeals are only partially met and require more to be done in this sphere, revealed a new survey.
The second edition of Deloitte India’s Income Tax Digitalisation in India survey revealed that India Inc has shown a positive perception towards tax technology and significant trust in the government’s digital initiatives. “The momentum towards digitalisation has led to the ease of doing business, enhanced efficiencies and reduced time spent on compliance for taxpayers,” it said in a statement on Tuesday.
The survey of over 250 top end corporate taxpayers however found that three fourth or 74% of the respondents expect the government to implement Standard Audit File for Tax (SAF-T) that would enable near time reporting and compliance monitoring. The OECD backed functionality has already been adopted by several European countries and would enable data on transactions to go in a digital format to tax authorities and be audited digitally. This would also change the way faceless assessments are being done.
“Taxpayers now expect the government to adopt SAF-T for a more efficient and faster audit processes and open APIs (such as GST) for seamless connectivity,” it said.
Notably, 74% of respondents expect SAF-T to facilitate near real time reporting and compliance monitoring. Additionally, 63% of respondents look forward to APIs to streamline data exchange with tax portals.
Rohinton Sidhwa, Partner at Deloitte India noted that the government’s progress in digitalisation is already reshaping the tax landscape, enhancing the ease of doing business and driving efficiencies that taxpayers highly appreciate. Deloitte’s survey reveals that 77% of companies have increased their budgets for tax transformation and automation in FY24, up from 67% last year—highlighting the growing recognition of the need for a robust, technology-driven tax ecosystem.
“Organisations are embracing advanced technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), blockchain, GenAI, machine learning, data integration and analytics to accelerate the digital transformation of their tax functions,” he noted.