2 Ways To Track Income Tax Refund Status Online

Updated: Tuesday, January 12, 2021, 11:01 [IST]

You are entitled to get an income tax refund within 20-45 days following ITR processing if the tax amount met is over and above the actual amount of tax payable. You can verify the status of your refund electronically once you submit your ITR and claim a tax refund. An income tax refund is an arrangement where the excess amount of tax you paid for the fiscal year can be returned by the tax department. Pursuant to Section 237 of the Income Tax Act, 1961, this excess amount of tax paid can be reclaimed. The ITR filing timeline for individuals was extended by the Central Government to 10 January, and for companies to 15 February. In order to check your income tax refund status online, you can follow the below covered ways:

Steps to check ITR status through NSDL portal

Visit the NSDL website and enter the required details such as PAN, Aadhaar and assessment year (AY).
Click on 'Proceed'.
On your device screen, your income tax refund status will be displayed.

Steps to check ITR status through e-filing portal

Visit the website: www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in and sign in to your account using the required credentials such as PAN, password and captcha code.
Navigate to the 'View Returns/Forms' section and select the 'Income Tax Returns' option under the 'My Account' tab
Click on the acknowledgement number, and you will be redirected to a new page where you can check your income tax refund status.
You will get a notification if the refund has already been processed by the department.

List of status message you can get

As mentioned above, based on your refund status, you will receive a message; the displayed notifications are as follows:

Expired: This indicates that within the prescribed timeframe, the refund cheque collected from you was not deposited in the bank. The authenticity of a cheque shall be 90 days during which the taxpayer must submit the cheque to the bank in order to receive the refund. A taxpayer is mandated to submit a 'refund re-issue request' to the e-filing website in such a case.

Refund Returned: There are two explanations why it exists. If the income tax refund is forwarded to you via ECS (Electronic Clearing Service), if you have provided incorrect bank account information, the payment transfer will not proceed. If you have provided the incorrect address or your house was closed, a cheque or demand draft can be rejected.

Processed through direct credit but failed: This suggests that the bank started to directly credit the amount of the refund but refused to do so for any of the following plausible causes:

Your bank account has been closed
Your account related operations have been suspended, limited or on hold.
If your account is an FD, loan or any other account
If your account is a non-resident Indian (NRI) account
In case the account holder may have passed away
If the account related details are incorrect

Refund processed through NEFT/NECS but failed: This suggests that the refund issued through the NECS/NEFT mode missed. In this scenario, the account number, account details and MICR/IFSC code provided at the time of filing the return must be confirmed by the taxpayer.

Adjusted against outstanding demand of previous year: This suggests that the refund for the existing year has been changed either in part or in full against the outstanding claim for the previous appraisal year. Under section 245, the tax department has absolute control to do this. Such a measure, though, can only be made by sending the taxpayer a written statement about the initiative planned to be implemented.

ECS refund advice received but not reflecting in your bank account: You may have received an email from the bank providing information on the amount of the refund credited to your account. This mail may consist of- name of the beneficiary, the account number, the IFSC/MICR code, the NEFT UTR number, the NECS sequence number, and so on as found on the TIN portal. You must check with your bank if your bank account has not been credited with the same amount.

Steps to raise a refund re-issue request

Due to any of the errors listed above, you are required to file a refund re-issue application, for the same you can follow the below listed steps:

Visit www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in and head to the 'My Account' tab
Click on the 'Service Request' option and confirm request type as 'New Request' and request category as 'Refund Reissue'.
Now you will be redirected to a new page where you will get details such as PAN, return type, assessment year, acknowledgement number, communication reference number and response.
Now click on 'Submit' and you will be asked to enter your bank account details and address details
To complete the process, you will have to follow the verification process using an electronic verification code (EVC) or digital signature certificate (DSC).