Income Tax, Refund is determined when you have paid excess tax by way of TDS/TCS, Self-Assessment Tax or Advance Tax against your Gross Tax Liability.

For Example: If your Gross Tax liability is of Rs.1,00,000 and you have paid Tax of Rs.1,50,000 by way of Self Assessment, Advance Tax and TDS, then difference of Rs.50,000 is the amount of refund that can be claimed by you by filing Income Tax Return.

It is the hard-earned money that you need back from the Government and that is why you need to file your Income Tax Return (ITR). In order to claim your Income Tax Refund, it is must that you Income Tax Return should be filed and successfully verified. Verification of ITR is possible either through e-verification or physically sent signed copy of ITR-V (Acknowledgement) to CPC, Bangalore within 120 days from date of filing of ITR so that ITR get processed and refund will be generated by Income Tax department.

After ITR processing, the department will send you an intimation under section 143(1) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 via Email, which compares the computation of income in ITR filed by you with the income computed by the Income tax Department and raised the 3 possible outcomes:

• Refund is determined, when the refund claimed in ITR accepts by the department and it also send SMS on your mobile phone No. for the amount of refund credited to you.
• Demand is determined when there is some mismatch in the income computed in ITR filed by you and the income computed by the department for which an option of rectification is available.
• No demand & No refund, when the department is satisfied with the income computed in ITR and there is no additional tax payable or refund credited to the assessee.

 
After few days of submitting refund reissue request, the refund amount will get credit to your bank account.

But sometimes happen when even ITR get verified & processed, the refund amount is not credited in the bank account number and here are some top reasons due to which there is return/ failure/ non-issuance of Income Tax Refund occurs:-

Let’s discuss following reasons one by one:

• There is Wrong/ Incorrect Account Number: When Incorrect Account Number has been provided by you while filing ITR.
• Name mismatch with Bank account holder: When there is name mismatch in your account number which is provided by you.
• When your cheque has been expired: One of the reason for failure of refund is when your cheque has been expired.
• House has been locked: As the house has been locked due to which the refund cheque which was dispatched has returned.
• Non Availability of assesse due to shifting: As the assesse was not available at their provided address due to which the refund cheque which was dispatched has returned.
• Address given for dispatch is a foreign address: For refund cheque to be dispatched to a foreign address, you are required to provide a valid Indian Address as well.
• Missing Fields such as: Account Number, Account Name, Account Type etc.: Missing fields like Account Number, Account Name, Account Type etc. were not provided by you.
• Invalid character in Account Name : If your account number had invalid character which was provided by you.
• Prevalidation of Bank Account Number: It is very important to note that, now a days only ECS of Income Tax Refund is facilitated by Income Tax Department and no paper refund. And for ECS, there is a very important thing to do that “Prevalidation of Bank Account Number”.

 
What is Prevalidation of Bank Account Number?
It means in your bank, PAN No. should be updated and by doing login to Income Tax site, you should prevalidate the bank account number in which PAN is updated. Thereafter, automatically refund will be credited into such account.

The above reasons for failure of refund can be rectified by applying “Refund Reissue Request” and providing the correct bank details and other relevant details to claim your refund.This can be applied through online by login the Income Tax Account at the link https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in

Other reasons:
There are some other reasons due to which failure of refund of Income Tax happens:-

• Wrong MICR code,
• Providing an account number that was closed,
• Incorrect account description,
• Invalid IFSC code,
• The Account is under attachment by court/IT, incorrect address etc.

 
This mentioned above reasons for failure of refund can also be corrected by submitting correct details online.
 
There are some pending cases as well, the reasons are as follows:

• Account holder KYC is pending,
• Account details given are other than Current Account or Saving Bank Account,
• The Minor assessee has attained majority and fresh documentation is pending.

 
This mentioned above reasons for failure of refund can be corrected by contacting with SBI Call Centre.

• Refund of Current year adjusted with outstanding demand of previous year either in part or full and Notice u/s 245 is send by department which provides you information regarding the demands against which refund would be adjusted within a time period of 30 days from the date of issue of notice.

 
However, the option of “response to outstanding demand” is available on the e-filing website to the assessee for providing the response whether demand raised by the department is correct/ incorrect or partially correct.

How to check Income Tax Refund Status?

For checking your income tax refund status, there are following two ways:

• Through e-filing portal of Income Tax Visit the e- filing website and click on “check refund dispatch status” which is located on the left side on the home page of the website.
• Through NSDL website Visit to https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refund-status-pan.html to reach the TIN-NSDL website.

 
On the above sites, In case, refund is not credited, it may show the reason of such failure of refund.

How to request for refund reissue, in case of Failure of Refund?
When refund is not credited in your bank account number, due to any reasons, you may submit “Refund Reissue Request”. For such request, you can simply go to the income tax e-filing website and click on “Service Request” under Tab “My Account” and Select Request Type as “New Request” and Request Category as “Refund Reissue” and complete verification process after filling complete required details.

After few days of submitting refund reissue request, the refund amount will get credit to your bank account.

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