Jan. 18: The time you have to wait for an income tax refund may come down sharply. The new Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) chairman, Mr Sudhir Chandra, said on Tuesday that they will try to pay all small refunds before 31 March.
Last year, a report by the CAG had said that it took 10 months for a taxpayer to get refunds. The move would benefit the 40 lakh odd taxpayers who are seeking refunds from the tax department.
The CAG had also discovered that cases of unsettled refunds have been piling up year after year. The delays are usually higher for individual taxpayers, who owe small amounts — less than `1 crore. Income Tax department is also in the process of establishing three more I-T returns and refunds processing centres at Manesar (Gurgaon), Pune and Kolkata on the lines of the existing centre at Bangalore.
Also to fasten the refunds through banks, the refund banker scheme has been made operational in the entire country. Speaking to the media at an informal gathering, Mr. Chandra said that he planned to ask his officials to devise a mechanism to allow processing of small refunds in less than a month.
“In next video conference I am going to ask (them) cant we give all the refunds, especially the small one before March 31,” said Mr Chandra. He said that he will be addressing his officials within 10 days. Any step to help tax payers would help increase compliance levels, he said.
The IT department expects to exceed the collection target of Rs 4.3 lakh crore for direct tax during the current fiscal year.
While taxpayers have been prompt on the payment side, refunds from the tax department have been slow in coming.
According to the CAG, cases of unsettled refunds have been piling up year after year and had added up to 42 lakh in 2008-09, which included 33 lakh applications of that year and 8.5 lakh applications from the previous year. The CAG also found that on an average, it took the income-tax department 10 months after the submission of papers to process a refund with the senior citizens being even worse off with a waiting time of 12 months.