Are you sharing too much? The risks of giving your ITR credentials to CAs
Mint spoke to noted that only a few taxpayers express concerns about sharing their login credentials, while most are comfortable doing so. “New clients who sign up online and haven’t met us in person or have not come to us through another client are apprehensive of sharing all their financial information," said Karan Batra, founder, Charteredclub.com. Daga concurred, saying that only 1 out of 10 clients exhibit this hesitation.
“These are new clients, and after using the services of the same CA for two or three years, they willingly share their login credentials thereafter," he said. In fact, it’s common practice for tax firms to maintain a database of their clients’ login credentials. “It’s time-consuming to call each client every time the tax professional needs some information.
Even most assessees don’t like that," said a partner in a tax firm, speaking on the condition of anonymity. However, for those uneasy about sharing personal details, there are alternatives. Instead of providing login details, taxpayers can send necessary documents like the Annual Information Statement (AIS), Form 26AS, and Taxpayer Information Summary (TIS) directly to their CA.
The CA then prepares the ITR and sends it back to the taxpayer for them to submit it themselves. However, this process is not as straightforward as it sounds. It can mean extra work, as the documents cannot be sent as PDFs or Excel sheets to the CA.
“We need the details in a technical format to import the information into the software used for preparing the ITR. The documents have to be in JSON or XML format," said Batra. Some CAs ask for files in both PDF and technical formats as they need the former to read the details and the latter to prepare the ITR.
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