Automation and Simplification in the ITR Refund Process has raised the trust factor among the taxpayers towards the Income Tax Department says CII Survey

89% of the individuals and 88% of the Firms surveyed have seen greater reduction in waiting time for receiving income tax refund.

A staggering 87% of the individual respondents and 89% of firms revealed that the process of claiming income tax refund as convenient in a recent survey conducted by CII to assess speed and efficiency of income tax refunds. Commenting on the survey results, Mr R Dinesh, President, CII said that “The extensive measures which have been introduced by the government in the recent years to streamline, simplify and automate the taxation regime have borne rich dividends as is evident from the upbeat survey results on assessing speed and efficiency of income tax refunds conducted by CII”.

This is further buttressed by the fact that an overwhelming majority of respondents (above 90%) including both individuals and firms/enterprises revealing that ITR refund gets automatically generated after filing the ITR.

The survey further revealed that 75.5% of the individuals and 22.4% of the firm-level respondents did not pay any excess TDS over and above their estimated tax liability. The respondents (individuals - 84% and firms - 77%) also revealed that the process of checking refund status was now smooth.

Notably, with the continued efforts to make the process of getting income tax refunds simple and efficient, 89% and 88% of individuals and firms respectively were of the view that there has been a greater reduction in waiting time to get an income tax refund in the last five years, between 2018-2023.

“The significant reduction in waiting time to get an income tax refund over the last 5 years by both individuals and firms, as shown by the survey results is encouraging as it reflects the Government's unrelenting efforts to make the process of getting income tax refunds simple and efficient over the years”, said Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

The individual respondents (53%) and firm level respondents (45%) cited that it takes less than a month to receive income tax refund. Reflecting the overall efficiency speed and efficiency of the income tax refunds, 83% of the surveyed individual respondents and 85% of the surveyed firm level respondents shared an increased trust with the Income tax department.

The survey was conducted in October 2023 among 3531 respondents out of which 56.4% were individual respondents and 43.6% were firms/enterprise/organizations level respondents. The survey was conducted at pan India level, wherein the maximum participation steered from the major states.

The CII Income Tax Refund Survey report was presented to the Hon’ble Finance Minister of India, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, yesterday.