Rs 2.24 Lakh Crore I-T Refunds Issued In FY22: Finance Ministry

The finance ministry on Friday said over 22 per cent of the verified returns were processed on the same day, while the overall average processing time was only 26 days for ITR assessments in the last fiscal year.

The ministry said that during 2021-22, over 5.70 crore income tax returns (ITRs) were processed.

Over 1.28 crore, or over 22.4 per cent, were processed on the same day after verification.

Over 1.47 crore ITRs were processed within a week, while over 72 lakh were processed within a fortnight and over 70 lakh within a month.

Once a taxpayer files ITR, it is verified by the Centralized Processing Centre, Bengaluru. After that, it is processed, and refunds, if any, are issued. During 2021-22, income tax refunds worth Rs 2.24 lakh crore were issued to 2.43 crore taxpayers. Over Rs 2.59 lakh crore worth of refunds were issued to 2.37 crore taxpayers in the previous year.

"The government has been focussing on refunds for last two years. Last year, a lot of pending refunds were cleared. This year more refunds have been given...In the coming years, we will not have a backlog of refunds, which has happened because of faster processing of returns," Joint Secretary in Revenue Department Ritvik Pandey told reporters here.

During the last two years, the effort has been to clear the backlog of refunds to infuse liquidity into the hands of businesses, the ministry said.