Given that 3.5 million cases of tax refunds are “held up”, the Income Tax (IT) department is considering organising campaigns to assist the taxpayers, apart from proactively pursuing other means to process the refunds.
The processing of the I-T refunds was not smooth when the process used to happen manually. To ease the process, the department switched to issuing returns through electronic means in 2011.
However, tax officials say misinformation regarding the bank account and permanent-account number (PAN) details of taxpayers delay the refunds.
Earlier this month, during an interaction with reporters Central Board of Direct Taxes’ Chairman Nitin Gupta had said that department was “in correspondence” with such taxpayers, whose refunds are stuck. “We want to credit the refunds to the correct bank accounts of the taxpayers quickly.”
The department has started a unique demand management facilitation system about a year back for all such cases where refunds are held up due to a variety of reasons. An email is triggered to the taxpayer saying they will get a call three days from the dispatch of the email from a particular number and following this conversation, the issues are being resolved.
A Mysuru-based call-centre is resolving cases of tax refunds. Over 140,000 cases of refunds through the call-centre were resolved in FY23.
Meanwhile, for non-residents, who do not have bank accounts in India and the refund cannot be processed to a foreign bank account. For such taxpayers, an alternative should be given where in tax refund can be credited, experts say.
In the current financial year till Oct 9, the Income tax department has issued refunds worth Rs 1.5 trillion. In FY23, refunds worth Rs 3.07 trillion were issued by the Income Tax Department.
Source from: https://www.financialexpress.com/money/income-tax-i-t-dept-may-launch-drive-to-quicken-refunds-3276919/