Income Tax payers alert! Waiting for refund? Must not ignore this warning from I-T department

This is really an important message for those who have already filed their Income Tax return and are waiting for the refund amount. A warning message has been issued in this regard from Income Tax department. In a major development, the income tax department on Sunday asked taxpayers to beware of phishing e-mails promising refund.

"Taxpayers Beware! Please do not click on any fake link which promises to give refund. These are phishing messages and are not sent by the income tax department," the department said in a tweet.

According to the latest data, between April 8 and 20, the department issued nearly 14 lakh refunds involving an amount of over Rs 9,000 crore to various taxpayers including individuals, Hindu Undivided Families, proprietors, firms, corporate, start-ups, and MSMEs.

On April 8, the finance ministry said it will fast-track issuance of pending income tax refunds up to Rs 5 lakh which will benefit around 14 lakh taxpayers, to provide relief to individuals and businesses hit by the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Earlier, on April 19, the Finance Ministry had said that the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is revising the income tax return (ITR) forms for FY 2019-20 (Assessment Year 2020-21) which will be notified by the end of this month, in order to enable income taxpayers to avail full benefits of various timeline extensions granted due to coronavirus crisis.

"CBDT today said that in order to facilitate taxpayer to avail full benefits with various timeline extensions up to 30th June 2020 granted by the government, it has initiated necessary changes in the return forms so that taxpayers could take benefits of their transactions carried out during the period from 1st April 2020 to 30th June 2020 in the return forms for FY 2019-20," an official statement said.

The necessary modifications in the return forms are being made to allow taxpayers to avail the benefits of their investments and transactions made for the April-June 2020 period. Once the revised forms are notified, it will further necessitate the consequential changes in the software and return filing utility. Thereby, the return filing utility after incorporating necessary changes shall be made available by May 31, 2020 to avail benefits for FY 2019-20.

Due to outbreak of Covid-19, the government has extended various timelines under the Income-tax Act, 1961 vide Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of certain provisions) Ordinance, 2020.