Income tax portal enables co-browsing feature — How does it help you in ITR filing?

Helpdesk agent gets an accurate visual representation of the taxpayers browser screen.

Agents can also annotate the taxpayers view of the screen, help to fill out ITR forms, other statutory forms, change settings, complete transactions, find help and reference materials for tax payers and even upload documents.

Agents can help taxpayer to navigate, scroll, type text, and highlight areas of interest on the same browser tab in real-time.

Co-browsing is simple to use. It can be easily combined with live chat, phone to resolve the customer issue faster.

When the taxpayer starts a session, the browser sends a request to the co-browser proxy. The request is then modified in a way that it looks as if the original request came from corbrowse.incometax.gov.in.

This request is then sent to the original site that the leader wants to co-browse. The website sends back the response to the co-browser proxy.

The co-browser proxy then modifies the data so that it can be loaded into an iframe that rests on top the original page. Both the leader and the follower now interact with the website as it is loaded within the iframe. From this point, there’s only communication between the user’s browsers and the proxy, and the requests don’t continuously have to be sent to the original website anymore, according to Income Tax department.

No. Co-browsing does not allow the agent to see any other data on the taxpayer's desktop or computer.

Also, the taxpayer need to approve the request before the agents can start the co-browsing session. Taxpayer can also end the co-browsing session at any time if they wish to terminate the discussion.

Agent will receive call & CRM pop up infront of agent.

Agent will talk to taxpayer and guide taxpayer where to locate co-browse button on income tax portal.

Taxpayer to generate PIN and share with agent.

Agent to click on CB button on CRM which will take him to co browse URL.

Agent to enter PIN shared by taxpayer in screen displayed to agent and click on start session button.

Once agent clicks on Start Session button co-browse session will start and agent can guide taxpayer.

After the taxpayer gets the answers, he/she can click the STOP button anytime. Once the session has ended, the agent will no longer see the taxpayer's browser.

(Source: Income Tax dept)