Income tax return: Refund time will reduce to 10 days in FY-23

Income tax return: refund time reduced to 10 days FY-23

Income tax return: According to reports, the Income tax department is getting ready to implement a system that will reduce the average processing and issuance time for tax refunds from the current 16 days to just 10 days. More significantly, the new schedule is anticipated to be put into effect throughout the current fiscal year.

“In 2022-23, the average time taken for processing tax returns was 16-17 days. It was 26 days in the preceding year, 2021-22. Now we are looking at processing tax returns in 10 days and issuing refunds simultaneously,” said by government officials.

Tax refunds totaling Rs 72,215 crore have already been given out between April 1 and August 21, with Rs 37,775 crore going to businesses and Rs 34,406 crore to individuals. According to the report, the total amount of direct taxes collected, which includes both corporate and individual income taxes, was Rs. 6.6 lakh crore.

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The development of technology and the implementation of a reliable system have sped up the processing of all tax returns.

The percentage of tax returns increased significantly from the previous fiscal year. Considering current patterns, this fiscal year “We are hoping to see a further jump in processing time to the extent that it could further shorten the timeline of the issuing refunds,” said by officials.

According to the report, the income-tax department has adopted an electronic approach for carrying out tax return verification and assessments. The procedure is managed via a secret back office staffed by tax experts and officials, with no face-to-face interactions between taxpayers and officers.

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The I-T department strives to release refunds as soon as tax returns are processed, according to another official. This marks a change from the previous practice of delaying refunds in order to increase revenue collection.

In order to enable taxpayers to receive their refunds within 24 hours, the tax department is actively working to further upgrade the system. Currently, 10% of returns have received refunds within three to four working days. Within the next few years, officials are confident that this quick refund processing will become standard procedure.

“The total number of ITRs (income tax refunds) for assessment year 2023-24 filed till 31st July 2023 are more than 6.77 crore, which is 16.1 per cent more than the total ITRs for AY 2022-23 (5.83 crore) filed till 31st July 2022,” the tax department had said in a statement.

Here are the steps to check ITR status from the income tax website:

Step 1: Open www.incometax.gov.in and log in to the account by entering the user ID (PAN) and password

Step 2: Login and click on the ‘e- file’ option

Step 3: Select ‘Income tax returns’ and then click on ‘View Filed returns’.

Step 4: Now, check the latest ITR filed

Step 5: Select the ‘View Details’ option and it will show the status of the ITR filed

What to do in case of refund delay?

Taxpayers should check their listed email to see if there is any communication from the Income Tax Department, seeking a response. In that case, it is important to respond to the email at the earliest. In case the ITR status shows that the refund has expired, it means that the refund has not been presented for payment within the validity period of 90 days. The taxpayer, in this case, may raise a refund re-issue request.