Union cabinet clears next gen income tax-filing system.

IT major Infosys has been selected to implement the next generation system for processing income tax return filings, with the Union Cabinet sanctioning an estimated Rs 4,241.97 crore for the project. The move will help in bringing down the income tax return (ITR) processing time to one day and hence speed up refunds.

The Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave its "approval to expenditure sanction of Rs 4,241.97 crore for Integrated E-filing and Centralised Processing Centre 2.0 Project of the Income Tax Department", Union minister Piyush Goyal said. Briefing media about the decision, he said the processing time at present for ITR is 63 days and it will come down to one day after implementation of the project. Goyal said the project is expected to be completed in 18 months and will be launched after three months of testing. Infosys, he said, has been selected to implement the project after the bidding process. The current system, he...