It has been almost 40 days since the deadline to file the income tax return (ITR) got over on July 31, but many taxpayers have not yet received their tax refunds. Last week, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) declared that the department had issued refunds of over Rs 1.14 lakh crore to more than 19.7 million taxpayers between April 1 and August 31. It added that the refunds worth Rs 61,252 crore had been issued back in 19,600,998 cases and corporate tax refunds of Rs 53,158 crore had been issued in 1,46,871 cases.
Read More: ITR Refunds Of Rs 61,252 Crore To 1.97 Crore Taxpayers Issued; Check Your Refund Status
Usually, refunds are issued by the income tax department within 45 days after processing ITR forms. But there can be delays due to many reasons, such as wrong details in the form, return filed but not verified, mismatch with form 26 AS, tax demands for past years, and others. Let’s look at how to claim refunds and how to check the status of your claim.
How to claim your refund
Those who have filed their income tax returns (ITRs) for the last financial year, i.e., FY 2021-22, and have paid more than what was required are eligible for a refund. In many cases, advance taxes paid by individuals and TDS (Tax Deduction at Source) amount are higher than the total tax liability during the financial year. One can ask for a refund while filing their income tax return.
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A person can claim the refund of the excess tax paid or deducted either by the online method (only for ITR-1 or ITR-4 form) or using the JSON utility. Once the taxpayer fills in all details, the refund is automatically calculated and can be seen under the ‘Taxes Paid’ segment of the ITR form.
Once all details are submitted by the taxpayer, the I-T department verifies the claim and processes it. A mail is sent to the taxpayer to verify the claim before it is paid.
How to check refund status
If a taxpayer hasn’t received the refund and is keen to know about the status, then he or she can log on to the official portal of the Income Tax Department— incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in, and click on View Filed Returns after selecting the Income Tax Returns option.
Following that, one can select the View Details tab to see the status of the ITR refund filed.
If it is showing ‘processed’, it means that the return has been completed and credited.
If the status shows ‘Submitted and pending for e-verification/verification’, it would mean the claim has not been e-verified, or that the duly signed ITR-V form has not yet arrived at the Centralized Processing Centre of the tax department.
If the status says ‘Successfully e-verified/verified’, it means that the taxpayer has submitted and duly e-verified the return, but the I-T officials have not processed it. One can also see their status as ‘Defective’ and ‘Expired’. Defective means that the tax department found the claim to be faulty. An expired claim would mean that the refund was claimed after the 90-day validity period. If a refund request fails, taxpayers can apply for a reissue of refunds.
