Income tax refunds of Rs.119,000 crore pending for 3 years

New Delhi, March 10
 Income tax refunds of over Rs.119,000 crore are pending for the last three fiscals, starting 2012-13, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said on Tuesday.

"Income-tax refunds amounting to Rs.1,19,964.13 crore relating to last three assessment years are pending as on March 5, 2015," Sinha told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

The pending amount for the current fiscal so far is Rs.68,032.21 crore. It was Rs.43,963.42 crore in 2013-14 and Rs.7,968.51 crore in 2012-13.

Processing, determination, issuance and encashment of income tax refund claims is a continuous process and a part of the outstanding refunds would, therefore, in the normal course also get postponed to next year, Sinha said.

"An amount of Rs.106,499 crore has already been refunded to the taxpayers in the current financial year till March 7, 2015, that is 32.1 percent higher than the amount refunded during the corresponding period of the last financial year and is 17.02 percent of the gross direct tax collections," he added.

The projected target of income tax collection in the ongoing 2014-15 fiscal is Rs.700,000 crore.

For the coming fiscal 2015-16, the union government has not changed the ceiling on income tax but introduced an additional two percent surcharge on the income of super-rich individuals in the country.