The Finance Ministry had last week 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 COVID-19 outbreak. And, now, the Income Tax department has issued over 10.2 lakh refunds worth Rs 4,250 crore within a week, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said on Wednesday.

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The CBDT has already issued over 10.2 lakh refunds totalling around Rs 4,250 crore as on April 14, 2020. About 1.75 lakh more refunds are in the process of issuance in this week, an official statement said. "These refunds would get credited directly to the taxpayer bank account in 5-7 business days from issuance," it said.

The CBDT, which is the apex body on matters relating to personal income and corporate tax, had in last fiscal issued 2.50 crore refunds totalling Rs 1.84 lakh crore. In around 1.74 lakh cases, email responses are awaited from taxpayers regarding reconciliation with their outstanding tax demand for which a reminder email has been sent asking them to respond within 7 days so that the refund can be processed accordingly, CBDT added.

"It may be noted that these reminder emails from I-T department are in fact for the benefit of taxpayers as it seeks them to confirm their outstanding demand, their bank accounts and reconciliation of defect/mismatch prior to issue of refund," CBDT said. It asked taxpayers to provide a response to such emails at the earliest so that refunds could be processed and issued at the earliest. Taxpayers can login to their e-filing account and respond to the I-T Department.