‘Hopefully, you are attending to this’! FM Nirmala Sitharaman asks IT department over tax refund complaint

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on October 4 asked the Income Tax department to look into the issues raised by a citizen, who has been facing delay in getting tax refund.

According to a post on X by Rahul Dubey, his wife Archana Dubey has been waiting for a tax refund worth Rs 52,000 for income tax return filed for 2023-2024. However, despite following up multiple times with the IT department, they have still not received any refund so far.

In his X post trail, Dubey shared an image of his email to the IT department dated September 17, where he complained of the delay in refund. He has been sharing this issue via multiple X posts, addressed to the IT department, the finance minister, finance ministry, RBI, the Prime Minister and his Office.

Sitharaman responded to Dubey's latest post earlier on Friday, where he said he received only one call from the IT department five days ago but no refund has been received yet.

Hopefully, you are attending to this @IncomeTaxIndia ? https://t.co/ehM2f1ogvP Nirmala Sitharaman (@nsitharaman) October 4, 2024

Sitharaman has been asking the IT department to be more fair to the assesses in terms of language being used and equality in treatment to them.

“The language used in tax notices, letters is convoluted, technical which frightens the assessee. Income tax notices should be simple for the average taxpayer to understand. Need to explore simpler tax notices, including explanation of reason behind the notice sent,” the minister had said in August.

Along with being faceless, the income tax needs to be fair and friendly too, she added.

“The experience of filing the returns on the first day should be the same as the last day, instead of frightening them. Be more amiable. Use enforcement measures as a last resort and action taken is proportionate to the issue. Fears compound when action taken is disproportionate,” she had said.