Income Tax Dept refunds Rs 1.27 lakh crore through direct bank transfers

Income Tax Department has refunded nearly Rs 1.27 lakh crore to taxpayers in the current financial year through its own automated bank transfer system, which is similar to direct benefit transfer (DBT) system, finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said.

New Delhi: Income Tax Department has refunded nearly Rs 1.27 lakh crore to taxpayers in the current financial year through its own automated bank transfer system, which is similar to direct benefit transfer (DBT) system, finance secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said on Friday.

Pandey said it was done to ensure that businesses get liquidity in this difficult time.

“Income tax Department now has a fully automated system of refunds payment directly going into the bank accounts of the taxpayers without any manual interface or intervention,” said the finance secretary.

The Income Tax Department has been able to issue refunds worth Rs 1,26,909 crore to more than 39.14 lakh taxpayers, both individual and corporate taxpayers, between April 1 to October 27 in the current financial year.

While individual taxpayers received Rs 34,532 crore, little over 27% of the total income tax refund amount, the bulk of refund of Rs 92,376 crores, nearly 73% of the total amount, was refunded to corporate taxpayers.

This year 37.22 lakh individual taxpayers have so far received income tax refunds while the number of corporate taxpayers receiving the refund stands at over 1.92 lakh.

DBT like system for income tax refunds

Pandey, who holds the dual portfolio of finance and revenue departments in the ministry of finance, said this quick refunds payment system is fully automated and completely transparent.

“The income tax department has created a DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) like architecture to execute quick refund directly into the bank account of assesses in a seamless manner and at a larger scale,” Pandey said in a statement sent to ETV Bharat.

“We are monitoring the progress of the quick refunds system on a weekly basis and release the information in the public domain. This helps in building trust between taxpayers and the Income,” noted the top revenue official.

(Article by Krishnanand Tripathi)