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Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund.  ~F.J. Raymond

No simile could be more apt than the one given by F J Raymond in the quote above. The excitement is immeasurable!

On the contrary, if you have not been able to get your old Income Tax refund till now. The agony is understandable!

So you haven’t had the pleasure of receiving the cheque of your income tax refund for an old case. Do not fret!

In this article, I have explained the procedure of getting the income tax refund quickly which you have not been able to get within stipulated time.

As per the latest Citizen Charter issued by the Income Tax department, the Government of India promises to issue your income tax refunds within a period of six months if you have filed your income tax returns electronically, otherwise the period is nine months from the date of filing of your income tax returns. However, only a few people receive the income tax refund in this time frame.

To get your delayed income tax refunds, you can follow either of the two processes enumerated below for ensuring receipt of this ‘coveted’ cheque. .

Application to Income Tax Ombudsman

As a first measure you can write to Income Tax Ombudsman stating the facts about non receipt of your income tax refund. As per rough estimates, 95% of the complaints to the Income Tax Ombudsman relate to grievances of the tax payer for non-receipt of income tax refund or short receipt of income tax refund. The role of Income Tax Ombudsman has turned out to be very effective in case(s) of chronic delays in issuance of income tax refunds due to loss of relevant documents in the Income tax department.

An strange incident, a friend shared with me that his old documents were not traceable with Income Tax department, hence concerned income tax officer volunteered to pay the amount of refund out of his pocket just to avoid any strictures by the Income Tax Ombudsman.

You can follow the process below to claim your income tax refund:

1. As a first step, before you write to the income tax ombudsman, write a letter to your assessing office for non-receipt of the refund with a copy to his superior i.e. Deputy Commissioner or Additional Commissioner of Income tax with all the details along with the copies of the relevant documents like return of income, form no. 16 and 16A.

2. In case you do not get your income tax refund within a period of 30 days, you can file a complaint to the Income Tax Ombudsman in simple letter format giving details of your name and address. In your complaint, provide the details of income tax officer against whom you are filing your complaint. Currently the offices of income tax ombudsman are situated in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Pune, Lucknow, Bhopal and Kochi cities. The details of income tax ombudsman for each area are displayed at all the income tax department in their offices. You can these details from your local income tax office.

3. The complaint has to be signed by you and in case your case is represented by an authorized representative, he should also sign the complaint.

4. Please attach the copies of the letters filed with your income tax office and his superior with your application to the income tax ombudsman.

The income tax ombudsman will try to get the matter settled through conciliation and mediation between the Income Tax Department and the person who has filed the grievance with him. by passing an ‘award’ in accordance with the Guidelines. In most of the case of refund due, the refund due is issued once the complaint received by you is forwarded to the concerned assessing officer by the office of Income Tax Ombudsman.

Using Right to Information (RTI)

The other equally effective method to ensure that your delayed income tax refund is promptly issued to you is to file an application under Right to Information (RTI) Act. There is no prescribed format for making the application in general however some states have prescribed the broad format for making an application under RTI. The fee payable for this purpose is Rs. 10/- which can be paid by postal order, pay order, or even in the form of court fee stamp. The application should be submitted to the commissioner of income tax under whose jurisdiction you are assessed.

For the purpose of refund, a simple question in the form of an enquiry may be made. For example you have not your received the income tax refund for assessment year 2008-2009, then after providing for the details of income tax return filed, amount of taxable income, tax payable, amount of taxes already paid and amount of refund due, you can ask about the status of the refund payable to you.

Let me make one thing clear, there is no separate office for RTI. All the offices who are covered under RTI are required to designate a person as Public Information Officer (PIO) to receive application under the Right to Information Act in respect of their department.

The application can be typed or handwritten. In case the application is filed with a wrong PIO, the person receiving the same has to transfer the same to the correct PIO within a period of five days.

This application will immediately trigger activity for issuance of income tax refund to you immediately and the Commissioner under whom you are assessed will ensure that your income tax refund is issued before expiry of 30 days from the date of your application since the Commissioner of Income tax has to reply to your RTI application within thirty days. In most of the cases the Commissioner of Income Tax, will provide you the details of refund issued to you just prior to his responding in the matter.

This way, do not take it lightly and fight for your rights.

Thus to ensure your overdue income tax refund, you can use either of the methods discussed above so to enjoy the pleasure of having been shot at and missed.

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