Taxpayers Will Now Receive Income Tax Refund in Just 7-10 Days

For Assessment Year 2015-16, the IT department processed and sent refunds to bank accounts of eligible taxpayers in less than 15 days. (Photo: iStock)

In what could be good news for lakhs of taxpayers, the Income Tax Department will now process and send refunds in a short time of 7-10 days, as its latest technology upgrade of electronic and Aadhaar-based ITR verification has begun on a successful note.

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 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.

“This is surely the way forward in the administration of tax affairs in the country,” a top officer of the department involved in these operations said.

According to latest statistics, the department received 2.06 crore returns on its e-filing portal as on September 7, 2015 (last date for ITR filing), 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) as on September 7 processed 45.18 lakh returns and issued refunds to 22.14 lakh tax payers relating to assessment year 2015-16, it added.

During this period, the department electronically verified over 32.95 lakh e-returns.

The data added that the peak filing rate touched 3,475 returns per minute this time as compared to 2,901 returns per minute last year.