Rs 1.27 lakh crore tax refunds issued to 3.9 million taxpayers, says govt

The income-tax (IT) department has credited about Rs 1.27 lakh crore in the current financial year through automated mode in the bank accounts of taxpayers to provide money in hands of individuals and businesses at this time of crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic, finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

“This has been done to ensure that businesses get liquidity in this difficult time,” he said in a statement.

Quick disbursal of large sums is possible as refund payment is now done through a fully automated system of the I-T department.

“This is a quick refunds payment system which is fully automated and completely transparent. The income tax department has created a DBT (direct benefit transfer) like architecture to execute quick refunds transfer directly into the bank account of the assessee in a seamless manner and at a larger scale,” the finance Secretary said.

The I-T department has been able to issue refunds worth Rs 1,26,909 crore to more than 39.14 lakh taxpayers, he said. “Out of which Rs. 34,532 crore were issued as refunds to individual taxpayers in about 37.22 lakh cases while Rs 92,376 crore were issued as refunds to 1,92,409 in corporate tax cases,” he said.

“We are monitoring the progress of the quick refunds system weekly and release refunds data in the public domain. This helps us build trust between the taxpayers and the I-T department besides facilitating liquidity to the taxpayers,” he said.

A government official requesting anonymity said that the department launched a special drive after the government decided on April 8 to issue all the pending income-tax refunds up to Rs 5 lakh immediately in order to provide relief to the businesses and individuals. “The department implemented the April 8 decision of the government to issue refunds in order to help taxpayers in a Covid-19 pandemic situation in letter and spirit,” the official said.

“Unlike what used to happen some years ago, in these refund cases, no taxpayer had to approach the department to request for release of refund. They got refunds directly into their bank accounts,” he said.

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