Income Tax Department Support Video Conference Hearing Amendament in Faceless Appeal

The Income Tax Department has made changes in the existing Faceless Appeal Scheme, making the process easier for taxpayers who wish to have a personal hearing through video conference while appealing against the tax demand by the department. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) notified the Faceless Appeal Scheme 2021 on 28 December. The Board said that the Commissioner (Appeals) will allow the request for personal hearing through video conference and will inform the date and time of the hearing.
online system problem

Faceless Appeal Scheme The online system had increased the difficulties of the traders. The biggest problem was coming in online appeal. In this, taxpayers have to give their answers online. The answer file should not exceed 5 MB. Traders were not able to present their full side in the online system. Due to this, the tax assessment was going against him. CA and tax advocates were also not able to get rid of this problem to the traders. The facility of video conferencing was available to represent the parties, but due to server problems, the merchants were not getting the benefit of it.Such hearings will now be conducted through video conferencing or video telephony. For this, all those applications and software can be used, which support video conferencing or video telephony.

However, no person shall be permitted to appear before the Income-tax Authority in person or through any authorized representative in connection with any proceeding under the Scheme. The request of the taxpayer for a personal hearing to make oral submissions under the previous 'Faceless Appeal Scheme 2020 requires the approval of the Chief Commissioner in-charge of the Regional Faceless Appeal Center or the Director General of I-T. Such approval was granted only if the Chief Commissioner or the Director General of I-T was of the opinion that the specified circumstances warrant a personal hearing.


The Faceless Appeal Scheme, which aimed to remove the human interface between the taxpayer and the Revenue Department, was launched on 25 September 2020 and provided a completely faceless process for appeals to the Commissioner (Appeals). It allowed taxpayers to file their documents in electronic mode thus saving them from being physically present at the Income Tax Office. Appeals under this scheme were randomly allotted to any officer whose identity would remain unknown to the appellant. The appellate decision was also team based.

However, serious fraud, major tax evasion, sensitive and search cases, international tax, black money act and cases related to benami property were not covered under the scheme. The plan ran into legal entanglements as several taxpayers approached the courts challenging the denial of personal hearing facility, following which the Faceless Appeal Scheme 2021 was notified on December 28.