How to Pre-validate Bank Account to Get Income Tax Refund Amount?

If you have miscalculated income tax and paid in excess or have an excess tax deducted at source (TDS), worry not. You can get a refund of the excess amount by claiming a refund at the time of filing of income tax returns. The income tax department will verify your returns and process a refund. However, this refund will only be transferred electronically to your bank account that is linked with your PAN, effective from 1 March 2019.

For such a refund to be successful, you must pre-validate your bank account on the income tax e-filing portal at the time of return filing. Here is all you need to know about pre-validating your bank account for a smooth and secure e-refund.

Availability of e-Verification options

e-Verification of the returns must be done with the help of a 10-digit alphanumeric Electronic Verification Code (EVC) sent to your registered mobile number. There are four kinds of e-verification options:

• Aadhaar OTP
• Netbanking
• Bank account
• Demat account
• Digital Signature Certificate

Online procedure to a pre-validate bank account

Taxpayers will receive their income tax refund only if their bank account is linked with their PAN (Permanent Account Number). For this purpose, you should “pre-validate your bank account” under the income tax e-filing page. You must log in to the e-filing website and update your bank account. The procedure is explained below.

Online procedure to a pre-validate bank account

Step 1: Visit the income tax e-filing portal at www.incometax.gov.in.

Step 2: Click on the ‘Login’ option and enter your login credentials (Individuals can choose PAN or Aadhaar for logging in).

Step 3: Upon logging in successfully, go to ‘My Profile’ and select ‘My Bank Account’ from the left pane.

Step 4: Select the ‘Add Bank Account’ button.

Step 5: Enter bank details such as bank account number, account type, account holder type, IFSC code, bank name and bank branch. The PAN, name, mobile number, and email address provided with your bank account must match with that of those of your bank account to pre-validate successfully. Hence, it is essential to keep in mind to link or update your PAN with your bank before pre-validating your bank account details under the e-filing portal.

Step 6: Next, click on the ‘Validate’ button. You have submitted the request for validating the bank account.

Check the status of your request

You can check the status of your request in the following ways:

• Upon clicking ‘Pre-validate’ button, you will be redirected to a screen that says, “Your request for pre-validating bank account is submitted. The validation process is in progress and the status will be updated shortly.”
• Visit the income tax e-filing website and log in. Click the ‘My Bank Account’ option under the ‘Profile Settings’ tab. The status of your request will be displayed.
• If the bank account validation has failed, the information on the same will be displayed. You can add/remove bank account after 24 hours.
  You must also know that mobile number or email address cannot be changed without revalidation from the bank.

Illustration

Consider a case where your name in PAN card has a mistake in how the name is spelt. If your name is ‘Ramesh Kumar’ as per your birth certificate, Aadhaar, bank passbook, and driving license, but says ‘Ramesh Talmaar’ in your PAN. You have no clue that it can be corrected and you have been using the same card. You need to correct your PAN data and link the same with Aadhaar.

Now, you have quoted the PAN while pre-validating the bank account on income tax e-filing portal, you can check the status of your request after 36 hours of the request. Your request will be rejected as the name in PAN does not match the name associated with the bank account.

As per the latest provision amended during the Budget 2019, you can use Aadhaar number in place of PAN for return filing. This provision proves useful in the case of the example above. Ramesh can validate his bank account using Aadhaar card (his name is correct in Aadhaar card). At the same time, it is essential that the PAN is corrected and linked with the Aadhaar in the e-filing portal.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to link a bank account to income tax refund?

Taxpayers will receive their income tax refund only if their bank account is linked with their PAN (Permanent Account Number). For this purpose, you should “pre-validate your bank account” under the income tax e-filing portal at www.incometax.gov.in. You must log in to the e-filing portal and update your bank account. The procedure is explained below. log on to income tax portal> click on Profile > My Bank Account > Add Bank Account> add bank details on the screen displayed. And click on ‘Validate’. Status of request will be sent to your email ID and mobile number. In case the validation fails, the information will be displayed under Profile settings> My Bank Account.

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