After an ITR is filed all taxpayers look forward to when the Income Tax Department completes the job of processing the ITR which completes the process. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said in Parliament that the government has achieved a feat by slashing the time taken to process ITRs from 93 days in 2013 to 10 days now.
“Average” is significant
While that is indeed an achievement, the moot question is will all taxpayers get faster tax refunds? The answer is probably “no”. The word “average” is significant in the finance minister’s statement.
From what she said it is clear that 10 days is the average time and while some ITRs will be processed in less time, some will certainly take more. Actually, the time taken to process depends on the degree of complication in the ITR filed. If the complications are less, less time will be taken to process it. Conversely, ITRs will more complications will demand more time for processing.
Process undergone sea change
Since 2013, the method of processing ITRs has undergone a sea change, imparting speed to the refund process. These are both based on upgraded technology and simpler methods.
Zero paper communication
The first improvement has been to totally dispense with paper communication and documentation using physical documents. Right now any request has to be submitted to the CPC only in electronic form on the e-filing portal. It has obviated the need for storage, management and sifting on the part of the Income Tax Department employees, which was time-consuming and impeded quick refunds. The Aadhaar-based verification has paved the way for e-verification which actually takes a few seconds.
New portal
In 2021, the new tax filing portal was launched. Though it has been affected by technical glitches initially, it has been more or less ironed out now. The interface has been made user-friendly facilitating quick tax filing and grievance redressal.
Errors, too, have been far fewer which has made the process smooth. The integration of automated systems has increased speed.
Filing Income Tax Returns (ITR) indicates that the job is half done. It is not complete till the Income Tax Department processes the ITR. Biz News Business News – Personal Finance News, Share Market News, BSE/NSE News, Stock Exchange News Today
