The I-T department has decided to extend the Refund Banker Scheme that allows refund of excess tax money to taxpayers to nine more cities, including Ahmedabad and Kochi.
“The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has included nine more cities — Allahabad, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Kochi, Pune and Trivandrum — for the Refund Bankers scheme. The implementation would be achieved within this financial year,” a senior I-T officer said.
Official sources said a top level committee of the CBDT cleared the facility for the new cities after it was felt that the scheme needed be extended from the present five cities — Delhi, Patna, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai.
The facility, for lakhs of tax payers in these nine cities, would be operated by the State Bank of India (SBI), the sources added.
Taxpayers should intimate their tax filing details to their respective assessing officers in their ranges so that the tax refunds could be processed and ensured to the right person, an Income-Tax officer added.
They should quote their MICR code and ten-digit bank account number while filing returns to avail the refund scheme which would be either through the Electronic Clearing Service (ECS) channel or as paper refunds.
The taxpayers are expected to list the complete communication address, bank account number, bank details and bank MICR code while filing returns in these new cities.
