Income Tax Department will now process and send income tax refunds in a short time of 7-10 days on the back of its successful electronic and Aadhaar-based ITR verification. The department’s latest initiative to verify an Income Tax Return (ITR) by Aadhaar or other bank database has received positive response from ITR filers. It is because of which the taxman, for Assessment Year 2015-16, was able to process and send refunds to bank accounts of eligible taxpayers in less than 15 days time. The new electronic verification e-filing system has proved to be very customer-friendly and as a token of thanks to the taxpayers. The department is working to ensure their refunds are sent in a week’s time or a maximum of ten days.
According to latest statistics, the department received 2.06 crore returns on its e-filing portal as on September 7, 2015, which is an increase of 26.12 per cent over the last year when 1.63 crore returns were filed online. The department’s Central Processing Centre (CPC) processed 45.18 lakh returns and issued refunds to 22.14 lakh tax payers relating to assessment year 2015-16. The peak filing rate touched 3,475 returns per minute this time as compared to 2,901 returns per minute last year. As per some testimonials received by the department from taxpayers, many have reported that they received their refunds in only 11 or 13 days time from the day of filing their ITR.
A robust mechanism has been created at the CPC in Bengaluru and a dedicated team of officials is in place. With these new technological advancements, the I-T Department wishes to completely eradicate human interface in these taxpayers’ services which directly leads to faster processing of ITRs and refunds apart from other services. The new e-filing system, allows online verification of a person’s ITR by using the Aadhaar number, internet banking, ATM or email, thereby ending the practice of sending paper-based acknowledgement ITR-V to its office in Bengaluru.
