5 mistakes that delay your income tax refund

In the era of e-filing, small mistakes lead either to delayed or complete denial of income tax refunds. So, avoid these 5 common mistakes that could lead to delay in refunds.

Non e-filing of income tax return

Often taxpayers are of the opinion that their refund will come directly without filing income tax return. While some of them have the habit to file it manually. But, from June 2015, the income tax department (ITD) has made it mandatory to e-file income tax return (ITR) for people who are seeking income tax refund. So, file your return online if you are expecting any refund.

Not choosing the correct income tax return form

Most of the time, people choose incorrect income tax return form to file their income tax return. This causes non-processing of their income tax return by CPC department of income tax which leads to delay in refunds (if any). So, it is advisable to use the correct tax form for filing your income tax return.

Mismatch of taxes paid

In maximum cases, people get delayed refund or even denial of refund when their TDS paid details as mentioned in Form 16 do not match with their Tax Credit statement i.e. Form 26AS. The ITD takes the details of TDS as per Form 26AS, as they consider it to be final. So, if the tax credit does not reflect correctly in Form 26AS then the taxpayer would not get her/his refund or sometimes s/he may even get slapped with tax liability notice from the ITD.

Primary reasons for mismatch in TDS paid as mentioned in Form 16 with Form 26AS could be non-deposit of TDS deducted with the government. It might also be the case that your employer or the bank which deducted the TDS on salary paid to you or on the interest paid to you on deposits, have wrongly entered your PAN (permanent account number) while depositing the TDS deducted to the government. So take corrective measures if you find differences between the details of Form 16 and Form 26AS. Also, make sure to mention the correct TAN (Tax Deduction and Collection Account Number) of deductor and TDS deducted in your income tax return. It may even happen that in cases where PAN is not mentioned then the TDS is deducted at a higher rate of 20 per cent which also leads to tax credit mismatch.

Wrong bank account details

If the taxpayers have provided the wrong bank account details in their income tax return filing then they will not be able to get their refund (if any) as the refund will get deposited to some other account or will not come at all. So, it is very important for taxpayers to provide correct bank account details such as bank account no, IFSC code, MICR code, etc. so that they can get their refund on time. Please note that from last financial year, the ITD is issuing refund directly into the bank account of taxpayer. The earlier option of refund via cheque at the address of the taxpayer is no longer available.

Not E-verifying ITR-V or not sending it to CPC Bangalore

This is also one of the main root cause of non-processing of tax returns by CPC Department of Income Tax. And therefore the refunds are kept on hold. So after when you have e-filed your tax return, don’t forget to e-verify ITR-V.

In electronic verification, the taxpayer receives one time password (OTP) on the mobile number associated with her/his Aadhar number. After this, taxpayer needs to authenticate her/his Aadhar number by entering the one time password at official website of the ITD. Recently income tax department has also launched 3 to 4 new methods of e-verifying via Bank ATM or through mobile and e-mail verification or through internet banking. The main benefit of this method is that the taxpayers are not required to send ITR-V to CPC Bangalore if they have e-verified their income tax return.

Alternatively, if anyone is not able to e-verify her/his tax filing then s/he has to send the completely filled ITR-V form duly signed to CPC, Bangalore within 120 days of e-filing his income tax return via ordinary post or speed post in order to verify her/his e-filing. If s/he fails to do so then her/his e-filed ITR will not get processed which will lead to no refund (if any) at all.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

MyTaxCafe helps people e-file their income tax returns