Income Tax refunds decline 23.33%

The Income Tax refunds during the first half of current financial year have come down to Rs 46,000 crore from Rs 60,000 crore in the same period last year.

"The IT refund in April-September period of this fiscal stood at Rs 46,000 crore," a finance ministry official said.

The government has set up Central Processing Centre (CPC) at Bangalore in 2010 to bring down time for refund and help the revenue department to cope with the rapid growth in the number of tax-payers.

In the current financial year as on August 2012, the number of refunds disbursed stood 33.51 lakh, out of which 3.15 lakh refunds were executed through bank facility.

In case of refund bank facility, refund directly goes to account of concern assessee.

The gross direct tax collection during first half of 2012-13 was Rs 2.72 lakh crore, up 5.87 per cent as against annual target of 15 per cent.

For the current fiscal, the government has set a direct tax collection target of Rs 5.7 lakh crore, which is about 15.2 per cent more than the actual collection of Rs 4.95 lakh crore in the previous fiscal.