Delay in your income tax refund? Know major reasons here

As most of the taxpayers have already submitted the Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the Assessment Year 2024-25, several of them have reported refund delay. Even though the returns were filed in time and verified, more than 2 crore returns have not been processed, and the taxpayers are restless looking for explanations.

Primary Causes of Delay

1. Defective ITR Notices: The major cause of this delay has been attributed to increased cases of ‘Defective ITR’ notices from the tax department. An invalid ITR has some mistakes, missing information or discrepancies that make it difficult to process the return. Such notices require the taxpayers to address the problems within 15 days in order to avoid further complications.

 2. Verification Issues: Delay in physical verification or e-verification which is pending can also slow down the refund process. It is important that your ITR is e-verified so that it can be processed.

3. Processing Time: This has led to an increased number of days in processing the returns, which normally take about 20–45 days after e-verification. This backlog has also played a part in the cause of the delays.

4. Bank Account Issues: This may result in failure of the refund to be credited due to wrong or outdated details of the bank account. Some of the significant points that should be noted are as follows: It is mandatory to check and update the bank details on the e-filing portal.

5. System Errors and Tax Arrears: Lack of clarity in the Income Tax Department’s systems or your bank’s systems, or even if there are some outstanding tax dues, they too can cause a delay.

Measures to Take and Eradicate Refund Status

To track the status of your income tax refund, follow these steps:To track the status of your income tax refund, follow these steps:

 — Log in to the e-filing portal: To log in to the official website of Income Tax Department, you need to use your PAN credentials.

 — Navigate to 'My Account': Choose the ‘Refund/Demand Status’ link to check the status of your refund along with the information like the assessment year, status of refund, and reasons for any failure in refund.

If your refund is delayed, make sure that:

— Your ITR is e-verified: Check to ensure that your return has been e-verified.

— Check for discrepancies: Search for any notice from the Income Tax Department of any anomaly with the return filed.

— Validate bank details: It will also be important to verify that the bank account details that you have provided are correct and are uploaded on the e-filing portal.

— Contact your assessing officer: If the time taken is long, then one is advised to seek assistance from their local assessing officer.

— Raise a grievance: However, if you want to raise a complaint then you can do so on the e-filing portal of the Income Tax Department also.

Caution Against Scams

The Income Tax Department has recently warned the taxpayers of an increase in the ITR refund scams. The scammers are using fake call and phishing emails to extract details from the taxpayers. The best thing to do is to be careful and do not believe any message that looks like this, and go through it with the real channel.