Amid Covid, I-T Dept refunds Rs 98.6K cr to 26 lakh taxpayers

In pursuance of the exercise to meet liquidity needs of taxpayers during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Income Tax Department said it has fast-tracked its tax refund process and processed 26.2 lakh cases amounting to more than Rs 98,625 crore upto September 1.

The Income Tax Department has worked at breakneck speed to process the refund claims. It issued tax refunds at a speed of 76 cases per minute between April and June and continued the momentum well into September.

In a tweet, the department said that between April 1 and September 1, refunds of Rs 29,997 crore have been issued in 24,50,041 cases and corporate tax refunds of Rs 68,628 crore have been issued in 1,68,421 cases.

Refunds of this magnitude and numbers have been issued completely electronically and have been directly deposited into the bank accounts of the taxpayers, it said.

Unlike what used to happen some years ago, in these refund cases, no taxpayer had to approach an officer of the department to request for release of refunds. They now got refund directly into their bank accounts, it said.