Income tax refund: Is your tax refund delayed? How to check status online & top reasons for delay

By Amarpal S. Chadha and Shanmuga PrasadITR filing FY 2024-25 income tax refund status: With improved technology and faster processing systems, income-tax refunds are now issued more quickly than ever.

However, if for some reason the refund is getting delayed, there are simple ways to track where your money is and when it will reach you.

How to check income tax refund status:

The quickest place to start is the Income-Tax e-Filing portal: log in with PAN and password, go to e-File → Income Tax Returns → View Filed Returns and check the status of return processing against the relevant assessment year. Once the status shows as tax return is processed with either refund or tax payable, the same can be cross checked in the intimation which is sent by the Tax Department to the taxpayers via email or can be downloaded from the e-filing portal.

In case the refund status is shown as processed with refund due, the next step is to check if the refund determined has been released or not. This can be checked on the e-filing portal in the Services → Know your refund status by entering the relevant Assessment Year. However, not all refund status can be checked by following this process. For example, if refund due has been determined on or before 31st March 2023 (typically refunds relating to Assessment Year 2022-23 or prior), refund status cannot be checked through this service, but through the NSDL/TIN portal (https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refund-status-pan.html) by entering the PAN and assessment year.

Why your income tax refund may be delayed

If your refund is delayed, do check for reasons: sometimes the tax department offsets refund against earlier unpaid tax demands. To confirm this, log in to the e-filing portal and visit Pending Actions → Response to Outstanding Demand. The portal lists any outstanding demands against your PAN and gives options to “Pay Now” or “Submit Response” (agree / disagree). If a demand exists, the system may adjust your refund against it.

Hence, resolving or disputing the demand promptly is important for smoother processing of refunds.It is also important to have a validated bank account (PAN linked) on e-Filing portal for receipt of refunds. Validated bank account details can be checked at e-Filing portal under Profile -> My Bank Account -> Revalidate/Add Bank Account (if applicable). Further, in case refund is not getting released due to non-validation of bank account, one can raise a refund reissue request on the e-filing portal under Services → Refund reissue which will automatically request for information of bank account which needs to be linked/validated.

Given that currently the tax return itself has an option to validate the bank account, this step of bank account validation through e-filing portal is mostly relevant for prior year refunds which are still not released due to invalid bank accounts. Though refund processing is quicker today, it is equally important for taxpayers to stay proactive. Regularly checking the income-tax portal, addressing outstanding demands promptly, and keeping records accurately help avoid delays, and in case of complex issues, seeking professional guidance is advisable.(Amarpal S. Chadha is Tax Partner at EY India and Shanmuga Prasad is Director at EY India)