Income-taxcan take several weeks to reach taxpayers after an income-tax return is filed and e-verified. While the Income Tax Department generally processes refunds within four to five weeks after e-verification, a refund may be delayed or fail to reach the taxpayer because of issues with the return, bank-account details or other validation requirements.
Taxpayers can check the exact stage of their refund on the income-tax e-filing portal and take further action depending on the status shown. If a refund has failed, the department also provides an online facility to submit a refund reissue request after the relevant bank-account requirements are met.
Here are the key things taxpayers should check.
1. Check the exact refund status
Taxpayers can log in to the income-tax e-filing portal and go to e-File > Income Tax Returns > View Filed Returns. After selecting the relevant assessment year, they can click on View Details to see the status and lifecycle of the filed return, according to the Income Tax Department.
The portal can show statuses including refund issued, refund partially adjusted, refund fully adjusted and refund failed. Therefore, simply seeing that a refund has been processed does not necessarily mean that the money has been credited to the taxpayer’s bank account.
2. Refund issued but not received
If the department has issued the refund but the money has not reached the bank account, taxpayers should check whether the bank account nominated for the refund is valid and properly validated.
The Income Tax Department says only a validated bank account can be nominated to receive an income-tax refund. Taxpayers can add a bank account, validate it and nominate it for receiving the refund through the e-filing portal.
3. Check why the refund failed
A refund scheduled by the department can fail to reach the bank account for several reasons. According to the Department, these include a bank account that has not been pre-validated, a mismatch between the name on the bank account and PAN details, an invalid IFSC code or a bank account that has been closed.
A refund can also fail if the taxpayer’s PAN is inoperative because it is not linked with Aadhaar, the department says.
4. Revalidate the bank account
Taxpayers can check their bank-account status through the My Bank Account service on the e-filing portal. The department allows taxpayers to revalidate an account if earlier validation failed.
The Income Tax Department says taxpayers may need to correct issues such as a PAN-bank account linkage problem, name mismatch, incorrect account number or a closed or inactive account before submitting the account for revalidation.
5. Raise a refund reissue request
If the refund has failed, taxpayers do not necessarily have to wait for the department to initiate the payment again. The Income Tax Department provides a Refund Reissue facility on the e-filing portal for cases where a refund issued by the department has failed.
To use it, the taxpayer must have a filed return with a refund failure and a validated bank account. After logging in, the taxpayer can go to Services > Refund Reissue, create a new request, select the relevant refund record and choose a validated bank account. The request then has to be e-verified.
The department says a transaction ID is generated after successful e-verification, and the taxpayer also receives confirmation on the registered email ID and mobile number.
6. Check whether the refund was adjusted
A taxpayer may also find that the refund was partially or fully adjusted rather than waiting for a normal credit. These statuses are separately displayed in the return lifecycle on the e-filing portal.
Therefore, taxpayers should check the actual status shown against the relevant assessment year before taking further action.
For taxpayers who have waited more than four to five weeks after e-verification, the first step is to check the return and refund status on the e-filing portal, verify the nominated bank account and look for any communication from the Income Tax Department. If the portal shows a refund failure, the taxpayer can use the refund reissue facility after ensuring that the bank account is validated.