78 Help centres for filing Income tax returns online will be started across the country on Saturday

Online System was started for all registered Indian firms and was made compulsory this year

Of The over 5 lakh such companies, only 5,000 could file returns till last week of October

CAs had problems as the system crashed frequently

The Income Tax department has finally woken up to the numerous problems in the online system for filing tax returns. The system was developed for registered companies.

Come Saturday, the income tax department will start help centers for e-filing across the country. According to senior income tax officials, the system will be started in 78 centers across India on the same day. In Mumbai, the center will come up at Aaykar Bhavan, the head office at Marine Lines.

The online system was made compulsory for all registered Indian companies this year. There are over five lakh such companies. And from the very beginning, chartered accountants who have undertaken the job of filing the tax returns for such companies have been complaining about the system not working and crashing frequently. They say they are able to file only two to three returns a day whereas they could file 15 or more returns when they did things manually.

However, I-T officials have till now failed to pay any attention to the complaints. As a result of the problem, only about 5,000 companies could file returns till the last week of October and the last date for filing returns -- which was October 31 - was extended to November 30.