OLTAS -Online Tax Accounting System

Online Tax Accounting System (OLTAS) is a system used to collect direct taxes from relevant individuals and organizations. Through this, the IT department acquires information and also keeps tracks of the tax that is paid via banks through challans online.

OLTAS was launched in 2004 with the following objectives which are carried out by the banks through their network of branches:

• Online collection of taxes
• Accounting of direct taxes
• Reporting of payments and receipts of online direct taxes

To help the procedure, following bodies were asked to work together in order to reach a common logical conclusion:

• CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes)
• IBA (Indian Banks Association)
• COA (Controller of Accounts)
• RBI (Reserve Bank of India)

As per OLTAS, a common single copy challan will be used by the tax payers for following:

• Challan Number ITNS 280: corporate taxes as well as regular income tax
• Challan Number ITNS 281: for depositing all TDS and TCS
• Challan Number ITNS 282: for paying the taxes like gift tax, wealth tax, hotel receipts tax, estate duty, securities transaction tax, expenditure tax, any other direct tax
• Challan Number ITNS 283: for any taxes relating to fringe benefits or banking cash transactions

After the bank stamps the challan, customers receive the tear off section of the challan containing a unique Challan Identification Number (CIN). The challan also contains the following data:

• Seven digit BSR code of the bank in which the taxpayer has deposited the tax
• Date of presentation of challan
• Five digit serial number of the challan which was presented by the bank to the tax payer on that particular date

The taxpayers need to enter the CIN while filing their Income Tax return as this provides an evidence of payment of tax with the authorities. The CIN is also used to be cited in case of future enquiries. The challans can be acquired by taxpayers from the official website of IT department and tax offices in the locality as well.