Director General of Foreign Trade to follow Faceless Assessment Scheme; similar to IT dept

Following the huge breakthrough of the Faceless Assessment Scheme of the Department of Income Tax unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, the government's Commerce and Industry Ministry is now set to apply the plan.

DGFT to make Foreign Trade Policy 'faceless' within a year 

According to sources of the Ministry of Commerce, the Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has been given the task of formulating and executing the Foreign Trade Policy to become faceless within a year. With this, the Ministry of Commerce will be the second such department under the Government of India that will be adopting the Faceless scheme after the Ministry of Finance.

Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal had earlier held talks with officials and representatives of the ministry regarding induction of the faceless scheme in the department. Following an elongated discussion, it has been decided that a one-year timeline has been set for the DGFT to go into a comprehensive faceless form like the Income Tax Department, a top official of the DGFT informed.

The Narendra Modi-led government had introduced the Faceless Assessment Scheme to provide greater transparency, effectiveness and accountability in the evaluation of Income Tax. The scheme, first announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the 2019 budget has been considered as a tremendous step towards transparent tax administration. The scheme aims to eliminate the physical presence between a taxpayer and the Income Tax department. It is a jurisdiction-free assessment where the taxpayer is unable to assert who is assessing his tax return.

Faceless assessment through online mode

The system applies a method to conduct a faceless assessment in online mode. Notably, the E-assessment plan was transferred to the current faceless assessment scheme. The scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 12, 2020. A total of 58, 319 tax cases were collected for the faceless assessment in the very initial batch. 

As per sources, the faceless operation of the DGFT will cut the cost of office expenses. Also, approval-related interaction with the exporters will be arranged with the help of video or virtual conference techniques, which is expected to save time. 

(With Inputs from ANI)

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