I-T refunds will soon come in a day

Income tax refunds, which used to take months, could soon be routed in your bank accounts within a few days after filing the returns.

The Centre is set to begin a Rs 4,241-crore project to integrate the income tax e-filing portal and the Centralised Processing Centre (CPC) in Bengaluru with the help of IT major Infosys.

The integration will reduce the time taken for processing refunds from 63 days to one day, the Union Cabinet decided on Wednesday.

The ultimate aim is to reduce the time taken in handing out refunds to the salaried class, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said after a Cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Goyal said the project for integration has been handed out after a bidding process which was won by Infosys. He said the entire cost of the project will be Rs 4,241.97 crore while it will take about 18 months to complete the integration.

The new system will be more tax-friendly and the waiting period for refunds will be reduced to days from months, he said.

The decision will ensure transparency and accountability besides faster processing of returns and issue of refunds directly to taxpayers’ bank accounts without any interface with the Income Tax Department.

Under the current system, one has to verify the filing of returns within 120 days. One can verify ITR (income tax return) either electronically, using one-time password (OTP), electronic verification code (EVC), or physically (offline) by sending a signed copy of ITR-V to CPC.

The new system will do away with all these hassles, an official said.

The CPC in Bengaluru will, however, continue to do the extensive risk analysis aimed at identifying persons who are non-compliant and aim to subvert the trust-based system envisioned while processing ITRs.

In all such cases of high risk, the department may examine and verify the details submitted by taxpayers in their ITR, subsequent to processing of returns at CPC.