BackDid You Know | You can check your income tax refund online
Did You Know | You can check your income tax refund online
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The wait for income-tax refunds is not as clueless an exercise as it used to be earlier. Now you can find out the status of your tax refund—whether it’s in process or has been despatched—at the click of the mouse.
Individuals in the four metros and other bigger cities, including Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Pune and Patna, among others, can check their refund status online.
What is tax refund
If your employer has paid a higher tax deductible at source (TDS) than what you actually need to pay or where you have made a surplus payment of advance tax, you are entitled for a refund for the extra amount.
In such as case you need to fill Form 30 along with your income-tax return form and submit it to the income-tax department. Ideally, you should apply for the refund within one year from the end of the pertinent assessment year. For instance, for refund applied in FY10, the relevant assessment year is 2010-2011 and you need to fill in the application before 31 March 2012.
Waiting period eased out
Once you’ve submitted the form, the waiting period begins—to hear from the income-tax department. Till now you would know only when you received the cheque or got an SMS from your bank stating the amount has been credited in your savings account; there was no way to find out when it would come or exactly which stage is it at. However, all that has changed with the online facility.
Where can you check
You can check at the income-tax department’s website, Incometaxindia.gov.in. You can also check your refund at National Securities Depository Ltd’s website, www.tin-nsdl.com, by going to the “status of tax refund" link.
And that’s not all: you can even call at State Bank of India’s (SBI) toll free number, 1-800-4259760, to check the status. SBI is the refund banker for the income-tax department.
Details you need to give
You need to fill in your permanent account number (PAN) as well as the assessment year for which you need to check the refund. As per the income-tax department website, taxpayers can view the status of refund 10 days after their refund has been sent by the assessing officer to the refund banker.
We suggest don’t check your status immediately after applying. Give the department a few weeks to get your papers moving.
Whom to contact for queries
In case you have any refund related queries, you can contact Aaykar Sampark Kendra at 0124-2438000 or email at refunds@incometaxindia.gov.in
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