How to Pre-Validate your bank account for income tax refund?

How to Pre-Validate your bank account for income tax refund?

ITR deadline is extended to 31^st August this year. You must be busy in filing income tax returns. However, some of you might  be expecting an income tax refund. Income Tax Authorities have indicated that you need to pre-validate your bank account in income tax website in order to get an income tax refund into that bank account. This would take just 2 minutes time. In this article, we would provide step-by-step on how to pre-validate your bank account for getting an income tax refund. We would also provide the advantages of doing pre-validation of bank account on an income tax website.

Also Read: Which ITR Form should be used for FY2018-19 (A.Y.2019-2020)?

What is an income tax refund?

If you have paid excess income tax than actually payable, income tax authorities would refund your income tax. Currently income tax authorities have speed-up the process and the majority of the cases are refunded within 3 months time while others there could be delays. Here are same sample cases where an income tax refund is made

1) Bank deducted TDS on bank FDs, whereas in reality you are not required to pay income tax or required to pay less tax (as an example your taxable income is less than ₹ 2.5 Lakhs)

2) Any tax adjustments pertaining to previous years to be done in the current year and you may get tax refnd.

3) You would have paid income tax in advance based on self assessment. However, after year end, your tax computation would have been lower and you are eligible for tax refunds.

4) Employer would have paid income tax, but employee claimed 80c deductions in the last minute before closure of the financial year that were not claimed with employer.

Why income tax refunds would get delayed?

There are several reasons why income tax refunds would get delayed. This includes having old bank account number, wrong address, erroneous deductions claimed, late filing of income tax returns, etc. If you are able to file income tax returns before 31^st July and pre-validate your bank account, your income tax refunds could be faster. 

How to Pre-Validate your bank account for income tax refund?

Here is the step-by-step on how to prevalidate bank account for tax refunds. Just ensure that such bank account should be linked to your PAN number before you follow this process.

1) Visit income tax filing website. https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home

2) Click on Registered Users Login Page Button. If you have not registered, you need to register first.

3) In the login page, enter your login ID (PAN number is your ID) and password and enter Capcha. Here is the screenshot on how it would look like.

4) Once you go your home page after login, go to “Profile Settings” and click on “Prevalidate your bank account”

5) If there are any pre-validated bank accounts (if this was done in earlier years), these would appear here. You can remove if you do not want them. If there is none or want to add new ones, you can go to next step.

6) Pre-Validate bank account screen would open. Screenshot shown below. You need to enter Bank account number, Account type (Savings, current etc.,), IFSC Code, Mobile number and email ID. Click “Pre-validate”.

7) You would get “Your request for bank account-PAN linking is submitted successfully and the transaction ID is xxxxxx. Status of your request will be sent to your registered email ID”.

The process is now completed and all income tax refunds would be sent to the bank account provided by you.

You may like: How to do e-verification after you file your income tax returns?

What are the advantages of Pre-validation of bank account in an income tax website?

Here are the main advantages.

1) You can receive income tax refunds into your pre-validated bank account

2) Can generate EVC for e-verification of returns/forms, password reset and secured login to the e-filing site.

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Suresh

How to Pre-Validate your bank account for income tax refund

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Suresh KP

Founder at Myinvestmentideas.com

Suresh KP is the founder of MyInvestmentIdeas.com, which he has run since 2011. He has over 23 years of experience across investments, mutual funds, stock markets, insurance, taxation and financial planning, and has written 2,500+ articles for Indian retail investors. He has completed NISM Investment Adviser (Level 1 & 2) and NISM Research Analyst certifications. Articles on this site compare publicly available data for educational purposes; Suresh is not a SEBI-registered investment adviser. More about his background: About Suresh KP | X (Twitter)

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