New Delhi:

Around 35 lakh cases for issuance of refunds are currently “held up” with the Income-Tax Department owing to mismatch and validation of the taxpayers’ bank accounts and the taxman is reaching out to such assessees via a special call centre, CBDT Chairperson Nitin Gupta said on Tuesday. The direct taxes body chief said the department was “in correspondence” with such taxpayers and it is their aim to expeditiously resolve these issues.

“We want to credit the refunds to the correct bank accounts of the taxpayers quickly,” he said.

Asked during an interaction about instances where refunds are stuck as taxpayers were getting old demands pertaining to years around 2010-11, Mr Gupta said the department had undergone a technology shift around 2011 — from paper-based registers to computers — and hence some of those old demands were showing up in the accounts of the assessees.

“We have started a unique demand management facilitation system about a year back for all such cases where refunds are held up due to a variety of reasons. An email is triggered to the taxpayer saying they will get a call three days from the dispatch of the email from a particular number and following this conversation, the issues are being resolved,” he told reporters here.

“We have resolved 1.4 lakh such entries over the last year following this Mysuru-based call centre interaction and the taxpayer can either accept the demand or contest it,” the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) head said.

Initially, this call centre was working for four of our ranges of Karnataka and Goa, Mumbai, Delhi and the north-west region but we plan to expand it further to other regions and cities, he said.

The CBDT is the administrative body for the I-T Department.

Apart from the record update at the end of the department or the assessing officer, there are two more reasons for refunds being held up, Mr Gupta said.

In some cases refunds are held up because the taxpayer has not validated their bank account, either the bank has merged or the assessee has changed cities and the IFSC has changed, he said.

“We urge the taxpayers to get their bank accounts validated. We have about 35 lakh cases where such mismatch has been detected and we are in touch with such taxpayers through official communication channels and the call centre as well,” he said.

According to official data for the assessment year 2023-24, a total of 7.27 crore ITRs were filed out of which 7.15 crore were verified by the taxpayers and the department has processed 6.80 crore ITRs out of these.

About 93.5 per cent of duly verified ITRs have been processed till now, the data said.

Talking about the ITR-U or income tax return-updated that was introduced by the Union government in Budget 2022-23, Mr Gupta said the department has collected 1,300 crore in additional tax after 16.8 lakh such returns were filed by taxpayers during the current financial year of 2023-24.

He was also asked about the new tax regime which the Union government brought out during the last Budget.

“We find that the corporates have filed about 60 per cent of their profits under the new tax regime during the last fiscal and we also hope that 60-70 per cent of individual taxpayers will shift to this new tax regime,” he said.

The new tax regime aims to end various deductions and claims and offer a flat and lesser tax rate to taxpayers.

Mr Gupta added that the direct taxes mop up was going well and “as of date”, the department has collected Rs 9.57 lakh crore in net revenue (under the personal income tax, corporate and other taxes head) after it issued Rs 1.50 lakh crore in refunds during the ongoing fiscal.

He said the department is confident that it will surpass the budget estimates made for direct tax collections at the end of this financial year in March 2024.

The 2023-24 budget has pegged the direct tax collection at a little over Rs 18.23 lakh crore, a 9.75 per cent higher than Rs 16.61 lakh crore mopped up last fiscal. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman with Nitin Gupta, Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes
| Photo Credit: Vedhan M

The new income tax regime for filing returns has been “sweetened” in the Budget 2023-24 and it will be beneficial for maximum number of taxpayers as they can enjoy a “reduced” tax rate, CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta said.

Speaking to PTI during a post-Budget interview, Gupta said the intent of the government while announcing the new slabs and rates under the new tax regime is to gradually “do away with deductions and exemptions” so that the “long-standing demand of reduction of taxes for individual taxpayers and entities can be met.”

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Budget 2023-24 in the Parliament on Wednesday, said the government has made the new income tax regime more attractive for taxpayers and has thus brought about ‘substantial changes’ in its structure for the benefit of the middle class.

“This new regime for individuals was laid down two years ago (Budget of 2020-21) but probably the benefits were not percolating and now the government has re-tweaked the slabs, re-tweaked the number of slabs and rates and the benefit is now clearly visible, be it any taxpayer…,” the CBDT Chairman told the news agency.

He said a similar measure taken for the corporate category of taxpayers sometime back has been found to be beneficial for them. He did not say the number of individual taxpayers who opted for the new regime over the last two years.

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“The new regime is really sweetened… the section of taxpayers who will not be benefitting will be a very miniscule section which is taking all sorts of benefits in terms of the interest in house property, the deductions under section VIA among others and only those type of taxpayers could be impacted in terms of they would be better off in the old regime.”

“Barring that, the new regime would be beneficial to everyone,” Mr. Gupta said.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is the administrative body for the Income-tax department.

The CBDT chief said that the government went into various aspects of the new tax regime, bettered it and therefore in the latest Budget, a “parity” of sorts has been achieved between the two schemes.

“There are about 3.5 crore salaried taxpayers in India and every salaried taxpayer will be at par with the old regime if they opt for the new regime because standard deduction has been made available in the new regime… so in terms of parity it has been established.”

“With the reduced number of slabs and wider slabs, the benefit will be percolating to everyone now and the long-standing demand of reduction of taxes will be met,” he said.

Taxpayers have independence to choose

Asked if the Finance Minister’s declaration that the new tax regime will be a “default” tax option will affect the users of old regime in any way, the CBDT Chairman said the taxpayers will have full independence to choose any one of the tax filing systems and none of them will be at any loss including the facility to reverting to the old scheme.

“The new regime is the default scheme in the sense that what will come up on the screen (on the e-filing portal) will be the new regime but the option is intact and the taxpayer can shift between the regimes…”

“There is no disincentive for any section of taxpayers and they can opt for the regime which they want to,” he said.

Mr. Gupta said an ‘online calculator’ will also be provided to the taxpayers, like before over the e-filing portal, to compare their tax liabilities under the two regimes.

Tax slabs

As per the changes proposed in the Budget, no tax would be levied on people with annual income of up to ₹7 lakh under the new tax regime but it made no changes for those who continue in the old regime that provides for tax exemptions and deductions on investments and expenses such as HRA.

Under the revamped new tax regime, no tax would be levied for income up to ₹3 lakh. Income between ₹3-6 lakh would be taxed at 5%; ₹6-9 lakh at 10%, ₹9-12 lakh at 15%, ₹12-15 lakh at 20% and income of ₹15 lakh and above will be taxed at 30%.

“This will provide major relief to all taxpayers in the new regime,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech.

An individual with an annual income of Rs 9 lakh will be required to pay only ₹45,000. This is only 5% of his or her income. It is a reduction of 25% on what he or she is required to pay now (in the old regime) — ₹60,000, she said.

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“Similarly, an individual with an income of ₹15 lakh would be required to pay only ₹1.5 lakh or 10% of his or her income, a reduction of 20% from the existing liability of ₹1,87,500,” Sitharaman said.

The minister later told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday that the government wants to make the new tax regime attractive enough and compliance should not be burdensome on taxpayers. However, if someone feels the old regime is more beneficial, he/she can continue in it.

“The ultimate interest is to make the simpler (new) regime more attractive,” she said.