I-T portal remains insulated against impact of Microsoft outage

The deadline for filing income tax returns (ITR) for 2024 is July 31.

The income tax department portal did not face any major disruptions and worked fine despite the Microsoft global outage, the department and chartered accountants said.

“Don't think there are any issues at present,” Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said late in the evening on July 19.

One of the world's major global system outages disrupted airline operations, stock markets activities, some media broadcast operations, and payment gateways across time zones, on July 19.

“Today @IncomeTaxIndia portal response was good, 26AS AIS/TIS download was also pretty good,” a chartered accountant said.

Today @IncomeTaxIndia portal response was good, 26AS AIS/TIS download was also pretty good

— Basu-CA & RV (@Basappamv) July 18, 2024

“Uploaded & e-verified mine and my family's Income Tax Return today. Have you filed your ITRs?”  a practicing chartered accountant Chirag Chauhan said.

Uploaded & Everified my & family's Income Tax Return today

Have you filed your ITRs?

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— CA Chirag Chauhan (@CAChirag) July 19, 2024

The deadline for filing income tax returns (ITR) for 2024 is July 31. A few days ago, the income tax portal reportedly faced technical glitches. Some chartered accountant associations also contacted the department with complaints of the same.

India's IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw posted on social media platform X that the ministry is in touch with Microsoft - at the centre of the disruption - regarding the global outage, and that the government's servers under NIC have not been affected. A technical advisory was also issued by the government's cyber agency CERT-In (Computer Emergency Response Team).

Microsoft has said that the underlying cause behind the disruption in the Azure cloud service has been fixed, adding the issue with the Windows 365 personal computers was caused by a recent update to the CrowdStrike software. The problem may be arising from an outage at American cyber security company Crowdstrike.

CrowdStrike Holdings' chief executive officer too has posted on social media platform X stating that the company has identified the update that led to a worldwide crash in the Windows systems and that 'a fix has been deployed'.

Meanwhile, the CBDT on July 19 said it has awarded the Taxnet 2.0 project to Bharti-Airtel for providing network connectivity, facility management services and video conferencing services to the Income Tax Department. Bharti-Airtel was selected for this critical project through an open tender selection process.

Taxnet 2.0 includes enhanced security by utilising state-of-the-art technology to protect sensitive data and ensure privacy, higher reliability by delivering consistent and dependable service to departmental users across the country. It also offers seamless connectivity by ensuring smooth and uninterrupted access to departmental users, thereby enhancing tax services for citizens and businesses.

“This is a state-of-the-art technology, providing secure, reliable and seamless connectivity services and marks a significant advancement over the current Taxnet 1.0 project. It will go a long way in enhancing the digital infrastructure of the Department,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.