Anew survey has revealed that automation and simplification of the income tax refund process has increased the trust of taxpayers as well as made the process more efficient. In fact, as many as 87% of the individual respondents and 89% of firms surveyed said the process of claiming refunds was convenient.
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The survey, which was carried out by industry chamber CII to assess speed and efficiency of income tax refunds, was presented to Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday.
“The process of checking refund status was reported as smooth among the 84% individual respondents and 77% firm level respondents,” it further said.
The survey also revealed that 89% of the individual respondents and 88% of firms mentioned that there has been a big reduction in waiting time for getting income tax refund over the last five years.
About 53.2% of individuals and 44.9% of firms revealed that it usually takes less than a month to receive income tax refund. For 43.8% individuals and 48.9% of firm level respondents, the time taken to receive a refund is between one and three months. Meanwhile, only 3% of the individual respondents and 6.2% of the firms reported the time taken is more than three months.
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Further, 82.8% of the individual respondents and 84.5% of the firm level respondents revealed an increased trust factor with the Income tax department.
The survey was conducted by CII in October 2023 and comprised of 3,531 respondents across the country. Of these, 56.4% were individual respondents and 43.6% were firms, enterprise and organisations.
“The significant reduction in waiting time to get an income tax refund over the last five years by both individuals and firms, as shown by the survey results is encouraging as it reflects the Government’s unrelenting efforts to make the process of getting income tax refunds simple and efficient over the years”, said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has been working to ensure smooth and timely processing of refunds. According to latest data, refunds amounting to Rs. 1.77 lakh crore were issued between April 1 and November 2023 this year.
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The survey also revealed that 94.4% of the individual survey respondents were of the view that ITR refund gets automatically generated after filing the ITR and only 5.6% of the respondents said that they need additional documents to complete the process. Based on the firm level survey respondents, 95.5% said the refund gets generated automatically and only 4.5% said additional documents are required to complete the process.
