You have filed your Income Tax Returns for the year and are eagerly awaiting your refund. Very often this wait could get quite painful. Weeks pass by, and tax payers are seldom aware of the status of their ITR, and as to when their refund would be sent to them. To solve such concerns, the Income Tax Department has introduced online availability of information regarding one’s tax refund. With the click of a mouse, you could now check the status of your income tax refund online. It is a quick, easy and safe way to know the status.

Checking Your Refund Status Online

Here is how you go about it.

• Log in to the NSDL website  https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refundstatuslogin.html
• Enter your Permanent Account Number (PAN) in the available box. Choose the assessment year for which you desire to know the status and then click on submit. The NSDL website is a secure website, so one need not worry while entering sensitive information.
• If your refund has already been sent to the refund banker i.e. to State Bank of India, the display would be something similar to the below image. State Bank of India transfers refunds to tax payers either through ECS, or by way of a cheque.

What the status message means

The message you will receive will depend on the income tax refund status. The message displayed will be one of the following:

Refund is credited: If your refund is successfully credited into your bank account, then this message will be displayed. It will also show you the last four digits of the bank account, reference numbers as well as the date of refund.
In case refund is not credited to your bank account, then you can: Call the SBI call centre at 18004259760

Refund Returned: This message will be displayed when your refund is not credited into the bank account. Reasons for this can include wrong IFS code or bank account number, account becoming dormant/inactive due to lack of use.

Adjusted against outstanding demand of previous year: The income tax department can adjust your income tax refund for the current year against outstanding demand of the previous assessment year either in part or full. The tax department has full authority, under section 245, to do this. However, such an action can be done only after giving an intimation in writing to the taxpayer regarding the action proposed to be taken.

Refund re-issue request
If your refund is not credited to your bank account due to wrong bank details, then you can raise a refund re-issue request on the new income tax portal. This can be done only if your income tax refund credit has failed.

The request can be raised by selecting ‘Refund Reissue’ under the ‘Services’. An individual will be required to select the ITR for which income tax refund has failed, the bank account, and then verify it to raise the request