I-T Department's E-filing Vault adds muscle to tax security

New Delhi: To ensure taxpayers are able to shield their e-filing against any fraudulent activity, the Income Tax Department on April 4 said it has introduced a new facility called E-filing Vault.

"By using this facility (E-filing Vault), taxpayers can prevent anyone from logging in even if they shared the user ID and password in the past. The dual-factor authorisation ensures higher degree of security compared with the simple user ID and password," the finance ministry said in a statement.

To use this facility, a taxpayer can log in to the e-filing account and select 'E-filing Vault-higher security' on the profile page. Taxpayers can then select to log in with any one or multiple options of higher security methods, namely using linkage to generate OTP, log-in through Net banking or log-in using digital signature certificate (DSC).

"Once this has been done, any future attempt to log in will require an additional check of OTP using Aadhaar or taxpayers will have to log in using Net banking or DSC," the statement said.

"By using this facility, taxpayers can prevent anyone from logging in even if in the past they shared the user ID and password." The statement further said the taxpayers can also select how their password can be reset.

The I-T Department has from time to time issued advisories on the need to avoid phishing e-mails and carefully protecting passwords and OTPs and not sharing them with others.