New Delhi: The wait for getting income tax refunds and the difficulty encountered in filling I-T forms may soon be over. Union Cabinet has cleared an ambitious Rs 4,242-crore project for integrated e-filing and centralised processing.
The project will reduce the return processing and refund time from the current average of 63 days. The Centre is building in an incentive for the service provider to process refunds in a day and there will be a penalty in case the work is not completed within 30 days.
The project will be implemented by Infosys and will take around 15 months to be executed.
Once the new mechanism is in place, taxpayers will get a pre-filled form in their income tax account which will have their name, Permanent Account Number (PAN) and other details. In addition, the columns related to salary, interest income and tax deducted at source captured in the 26AS forms will also be there. Taxpayers can add to the form by adding other income that may have accrued but not reported to the tax department earlier.
Elaborating on the decision, minister for railways Piyush Goyal also said there will a system for quicker rectification of mistakes.
"By faster processing of returns and issue of refunds to the taxpayer's bank account directly without any interface with the department, by adhering to international best practices and standards (ISO certification) and by providing processing status updates and speedy communication using mobile app, email, SMS and on the department website, the decision will ensure transparency and accountability," an official statement said.
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