Mumbai: The Income Tax (IT) Department was the top Google Trends search topic last week by tax payers waiting for tax refunds almost a month after the 31 July deadline of filing annual tax returns. The tax payers waiting for their tax refunds searched the key words Income Tax on google making it the top searched topic after the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) failure to issue tax refunds of most taxpayers more than a month after filing returns.
According to data available from the CBDT, a total of 7.51 crore income tax returns (ITRs) were filed and 7.37 crore returns verified for the assessment year 2024-25 while only 6.38 crore ITRs were processed for tax refunds with lover 99 lakh ITRs still waiting to be processed for refunds.
“approximately 13.2% of the filed ITRs remain unprocessed and waiting for tax refunds led to the large numbers of tax payers led to the income tax trending on google search,” explained a senior tax official and further adding that the struggle to process refunds was delayed due to the increase in ‘Defective ITR’ notices issued by the tax department this year.
The defective ITR refers to incomplete or incorrect information of the taxpayer preventing the processing of refunds. The deadline for filing tax returns was 31 July 2024 while tax payers can file belated tax returns until 31 December 2024 with late fees and interest on tax dues.
While the taxpayers who filed their returns before the ITR due date and not received refunds will be eligible to receive interest on the tax refund amount from the Income Tax Department.
