It was over 30 years ago. I was sitting with a client helping
create a transaction entry form for batch processing. It surprised me
that something as trivial as the use of a client code was not
obvious. It was odd to have to explain that once the client code is
entered, there is no need to enter all the information to identify a
client uniquely. The name may be entered as a verification that the
account code was correct. The problem was that the client's
perspective was different - how would the user looking at the
transaction form know who the client was. So, to the client, the
transaction form I was suggesting seemed user-unfriendly!
I remembered this incident as I was just about to complete the
income tax return, ITR-1, online. There was just one data field left.
It was an information only field – tax exempt income, e.g. from
mutual fund dividends. The form would not let me enter the 5th
digit. It seemed like a bug and I posted a query. The response was
pretty quick. If the tax exempt income exeeds Rs. 5000, ITR-2 needs
to be filled. The latter is considerably more complex and wasn't
available online.
Since the tax savings options encourage investing in mutual funds,
there must be a lot of people, especially retired who have tax exempt
income from dividends. One solution could be create another form
which is only a little more complex than the existing ITR-1 form. But
that would complicate the decision of which form to fill.
The improvement in the ease of filing income tax returns in recent
years has been phenomenal. The reduction in the papers which need to
be submitted stands out in contrast to the rest of the bureaucracy.
The option to move online provides another opportunity to re-examine
the process and make is easier still.
Tax Filing Application instead of ITR Forms
The question arises that do you need to map online forms to the
standard print forms. It is pretty obvious that the form the way it
is entered by the tax payer does not have to be the same as the way
a tax inspector sees it.
You may view filing of an income tax return by a tax payer as an
application. This application can be driven from the perspective of
the tax payer rather than the income tax office. The primary
selection critetrion for which ITR form needs to be filled is the
nature and source of a person's income.
So, the application should start with letting the tax payer enter
all his sources of income, including the tax exempt income. A new tax
payer, as I recall doing, may not realise that the gross income is
supposed to exclude the tax exempt income! I remember not being able
to figure out how to deduct the tax exempt income to get the correct
taxable income and had to seek help.
Based on the sources of income, the application can determine the
mandatory and optional fields which may need to entered.
The person filling the return need see only what is applicable to
him given the sources of his income.
The same strategy can be followed for the expenses and deductions
applicable for a reduction in tax liability.
As at present, businesses and professionals will need to submit
the balance sheet just as they do now with the ITR-4 form. The online
process may not decrease the amount of information a taxpayer needs
to supply. Only the visible complexity of the application increases
based on what is needed from the taxpayer. At the end, the
application can submit the appropriate ITR form for processing,
without the taxpayer having to decide on which form is applicable for
him.
The key difference, thus, is that the the application decides
which form is applicable based on the data rather than the taxpayer
deciding first and then filling the fields appropriate for him.
Futhermore, seeing only what is needed makes it much more likley that
the returns submitted will be free of errors caused by any
misunderstanding of the interpretation of various similar fields.
Open source tools make it easy for the development of complex
applications with dynamic forms.
Consider the example of Django. Among the design options available
for your consideration are as follows:
You may use the conditional (if) blocks in the template
language for some fields to be included or not based on values of
variables at runtime.
You may create multiple templates. The application can
determine at runtime which template needs to be used.
You may programmatically add or delete fields in a form.
You may use a application like the “form wizard”. A form
wizard allow you to split forms across multiple web pages. It will
maintain the state on the backend so that the processing on the
server side is delayed until the final form is submitted.
Hopefully, the income tax return application can become a model
and reference point for all future applications using which the
citizen needs to interact with the government.
Sep 2013
