The Income Tax department has reportedly saved a massive amount of around Rs 977.54 crore over a period of five years, due to the surge in the use of e-mails over the post. The department has saved Rs 212.27 crore on the postage cost in 2017-2018 (till December 31, 2018).

According to the data, released by the Finance Ministry, the tax department has saved to the tune of Rs 140.91 crore during 2014-2015; Rs 348.55 crore during 2015-2016; Rs 177.36 crore during 2016-2017 and Rs 212.27 crore during 2017-2018.

The data states that 14.15 crore e-mails were sent to taxpayers in 2017-2018, as compared to 11.82 crores during 2016-2017 and 6.56 crore during 2013-2014. It has been witnessed that the rise in the online communication was seen in 2015-2016. In 2015-2016, the tax department rolled out the paperless assessment in India.

The Central Processing Centre (CPC) for Income Tax returns has so far sent around 73.73 crores digitally signed intimations to correspondence via e-mail. Other than this around 67.96 crore SMS alerts and 4.17 crore intimations by conventional speed post across the country.

The Income Tax Department has calculated that the savings on postage cost by taking into consideration the average cost per speed post or ordinary post stand at Rs 15. The CPC processed about 5.62 crore Income Tax returns during 2017-2018, compared with 4.57 crore returns during the previous fiscal.

The CPC has also processed 1,25,978 wealth tax returns through electronic mode.