More than half the individuals and 45% of businesses received income tax refunds within a month, a key factor for more than 80% of the respondents of a CII survey, indicating that they have greater trust in the tax department.
Faster return processing and issue of refunds has been a thrust area for the government and the survey indicates that the feedback has been positive.
Until a few years ago, until the process was automated, refunds would take as much as a year.
While around 88% of the individuals and firms covering a sample of over 3,500 respondents said refunds were faster than five years ago, 65-70% of those polled believed that wait time is shorter than a year ago. Over 62% of the respondents found the refund process “very convenient”, according to the survey.
When asked about TDS system, three-fourths of individuals said there was no excess deduction, but results clearly pointed to scope for improvement when it came to businesses as only 22% responded by saying they did not pay extra TDS. At least 26% of the business entities said they had paid 10-20% above their liability.