Checklist for Income Tax Refund
If your employer has deducted income tax in excess or you were not able to declare your investments on time. Worry not as one can claim the excess income tax back from the income tax department.
Steps to Guide you when you are filing for Income Tax Refund:
- You can claim income tax refund by simply filing income tax return. If you find in the income tax return mentioning that you have paid more income tax, there is no need to apply for it separately.
- You are not required to file income tax return if your taxable income is lower than the maximum exempted limit. If you wish to claim any refund for income tax, you have to file return.
- Tax refunds need to be claimed within a period of two years from the end of the financial year for which the tax refund claim is related.
- Before claiming income tax refund, you must check Form 26AS available on the Income tax website, it's also know as your tax credit statement. Even if your income tax return shows more tax paid by you but not displayed in your 26AS statement, you will not get the refund. 26AS shows the tax paid against a permanent account number (PAN) during a particular financial year.
- If your employer has deducted the income tax from your salary but did not deposited with the income tax department, then it will not be displayed in your form 26AS statement.
- If you file tax return incorrectly, that would also cause a delay in getting the refund.
- There is a provision with the income tax refund that if there is a delay in case of a tax refund, you are entitled to get an interest at the rate of 0.50 per cent for every month from the April first of the assessment year till the tax refund is paid to you.
- In case there is any delay in filing income tax refund due to your own reason, no interest is applicable to be paid for the period of delay. For example, if you have filed delayed income tax return in September, you will only get interest from September onwards for the delay, if any.
- You can check online income tax refund status at Income tax official website by entering details like your PAN and assessment year.