Taxpayers are entitled to claim a tax refund if, during the year, excess tax has been deducted from your income. This may happen if there are multiple incomes. But, you have to apply for a refund while filing your ITR for a particular financial year. Have you filed your income tax return (ITR) for the assessment year (AY) 2019-20 on time but yet not receive your income tax refund? Don’t worry.
As per the procedure, Income Tax Department processes the refund only after you have filed and verified the Income Tax Return. Generally, it takes 20-45 days from the date of e-verification of your Income Tax Return to get your refund credited.
Earlier, tax refund was issued either in the form of a cheque or directly credited to bank accounts. However, currently the income tax department credits tax refunds directly to bank accounts of taxpayers only. These accounts need to be pre-validated and linked to the taxpayers’ permanent account number (PAN) from this assessment year.
You need to provide information on all the savings and current accounts held at any time in India during the previous year, according to income tax rules. Only details of accounts that have been inoperative for at least three years or more are not required.
You can visit these websites to check your tax refund status: www.incometaxindia.gov.in or www.tin-nsdl.com. Go to the “Status of Tax Refunds” tab, give your PAN number and the assessment year for which you wish to track the status of refund. A message will pop up, stating the mode of payment, a reference number, status and the date of refund. Of course, these will happen only if the refund has been processed.
If the tax department determines, after processing your income tax return (ITR), that a refund is payable to you, an intimation is sent to you via SMS and email. The intimation notice received by you shows the amount of refund that will be credited into your account along with a refund sequence number. An intimation is sent to you under section 143 (1) of the income tax Act.
However, if there is any problem due to which tax refund not received, there would be a suitable message. For e.g., if the message is “refund unpaid,” it could be due to the incorrect bank account details (account number or IFS Code) you may have submitted to the income tax department. Verify the bank account details submitted earlier.
Before you raise the request for the refund re-issue on the e-filing website, remember that rejection of refund on tin-nsdl website must be reflected. If you cannot track the status of your tax refund or until the reason of rejection is reflected on the e-filing website, then you cannot raise the refund re-issue request.
In such a case you have to raise a grievance on the e-filing website, under the ‘e-Nivaran’ tab.
Direct Tax Code: Proposals for Implementation
Income tax notice u/s 143(1)(a)
Sabyasachi Paul has been associated with equity research and advisory on equity markets in India for over 12 years & currently heads the equity research desk of Eastern Financiers Ltd, Kolkata. He also manages a portfolio on the online platform Kristal. Find link to the strategy named ‘The Tortoise’