First and foremost, congratulations! You are in an enviable position of being eligible for getting money back from the tax department instead of forking out taxes to them.
We can imagine how impatient you must be to receive your refund! So let’s get right down to helping you fix your problem and get your rightful cash back from the IT department.
Step 1: Check the status of your refund
ClearTax lets you check your refund status in just a click. Click here to check your status now.
Keep your PAN number and the Assessment Year for which you want to check refund status handy.
Step 2: Figure out what your refund status means
1. No e-Filing has been done for this assessment year.
2. Not Determined
3. Refund Paid
Note: You may have received a “notice” explaining why if you see one of these statuses
4. No demand no refund
5. ITR processed refund determined and sent out to Refund Banker
6. Refund Unpaid
7. Demand determined
8. Contact Jurisdictional Assessing Officer
Step 3: Take appropriate action
Number
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Reasons why your refund hasn’t reached you
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Next Steps
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1
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You may have filed your returns in the physical form and not e-filed. There could be a lag in reconciling paper filings with e-filed returns, hence the delay
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Be patient and wait for the IT department to reconcile their paperwork.
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2
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Your refund request is still being processed. The delay could be at 2 levels – the IT department itself is taking time to process your request
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Be patient. The Income Tax department takes time to process refunds. Make sure you’ve sent the ITR-V within 120 days of e-Filing.
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OR
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Your request has been processed by the IT department and is stuck at the Refund Banker’s end.
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Missed sending the ITR-V in 120 days? Then you need to only revise your return and send the new acknowledgement to CPC Bangalore.
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3
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Your address provided to the IT department is wrong, hence the cheque has not been delivered
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Check out the Speed Post reference number for your cheque that is available on the NSDL – TIN website. Armed with this reference number, cross check with your local post office why the cheque hasn’t reached you yet.
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If your address has changed since filing your IT return, you can correct it online via www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in or contact your Assessing Officer and inform them in writing about the change of address.
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To find out who the Assessing Officer is, click on this link and quote your PAN number.
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4
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The bank account that you submitted to the IT department has changed, hence the refund hasn’t reached you
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If your bank account has changed since the time you filed your returns, communicate the new account number and MICR code to your Assessing Officer. The AO will instruct SBI to issue a new cheque to the new account that you have registered with them.
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To find out who the Assessing Officer is, click on this link and quote your PAN number.
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5
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You did not explicitly request a refund while filing your IT returns
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Did you forget to include a certain deduction while filing?
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You can still revise your return with the refund request included in it if your Income Tax Return hasn’t been processed yet.
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Read ClearTax’s guide to revising your Income Tax Return.
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6
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Your refund request was found to be incorrect as per the IT department’s calculations, hence your refund has been rejected.
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Remember, whenever the Income Tax Department begs to differ with the information you’ve provided, they will send you a notice explaining what exactly they have a problem with.
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If you received a notice saying your refund was rejected, you still have an opportunity to file a rectification to support your refund claim. Contact the experts at ClearTax for help.
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7
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Your refund request has been rejected, in fact the IT department finds that you owe them unpaid taxes instead.
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You can expect to receive a notice from the Income Tax Department regarding the exact amount of tax outstanding.
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Cross check with your own records to verify that your original refund request was correct.
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If it was, file a rectification supporting your refund claim. If you find that your refund request was indeed erroneous, pay the tax demanded by the IT department within the time limit mentioned in the intimation.
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8
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The IT department needs additional documentation from your end to process your refund request
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On receiving such a message, contact the Assessing Officer for your region without delay.
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To find out who the Assessing Officer is, click on this link and quote your PAN number.
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You may contact your Assessing Officer via telephone or by post. However, in order to maintain a record of your actions, we recommend contacting your AO via post and requesting a written acknowledgment from them for the same.
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Source: www.in.finance.yahoo.com
