Have you got the income tax refund for the financial year 2018-19? If not then you are among the nine per cent assessees who are yet to get their refund.

The Income Tax Department on Tuesday claimed that 2.10 crore, or nearly 91 per cent refunds for 2018-19 or assessment year 2019-20, have been settled. This is nearly 20 per cent higher than last year. The total amount of refunds issued in FY2019-20 till November 28 was over ₹1.46 lakh crore, as against ₹1.19 lakh crore in the same period last year, showing an increase of 22.7 per cent.

The number of verified refund ITRs pending as on November 29 is 20.76 lakh and are currently being processed. The pendency of refunds for verified ITRs has been reduced by 36 per cent from 31.97 lakh last year at the same time. The Department said that balance refunds are being processed,

CPC processed 4.70 crore returns during current fiscal as on November 28, while for the same period during last fiscal, 3.91 crore returns were processed. This shows an increase of 20 per cent. The Department said 43 lakh more refunds were issued within 30 days in the current fiscal compared to the previous year which shows an improvement of over 42 per cent.

Counting for refunds starts on the day when e-verification is completed. During this fiscal, of the 2.10 crore refund ITRs processed, 68 per cent refunds were issued within 30 days from the date of e-verification of ITR as compared to 57 per cent during the last fiscal. All 2.28 crore refunds issued by CPC has been directly credited to the taxpayer’s bank account by ECS (Electronic Clearing System), eliminating paper cheque and ensuring faster, accurate and safer credit.

The Department also said that in the current financial year, CPC re-issued 22.30 lakh refunds by ECS to taxpayers whom it could not previously contact for different reasons such as wrong address or bank account closure, etc when their fresh bank account number for current year was found to be valid.

Published on December 3, 2019