'Finmin needs to remove delays in high value tax refund'

In order to check unnecessary delays in refund of high value income tax dues, the government needs to introduce an online mechanism to make the process more taxpayer friendly, industry body Ficci said today.
Industry chamber Ficci's National Committee on Transport infrastructure has asked Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to remove delays in refund of high value income tax dues by making the process online and tax payer friendly.
The Finance Ministry has made filing of income tax customer friendly through online mechanism, but the same is not true for refunds, the chamber said in a statement.
In a letter to the Finance Minister, Ficci suggests several steps to make the process of refund taxpayer friendly, including issuance of an online passbook system linked with the PAN number, where the refunds are credited as dues for each financial year.

It has also "urged the Minister to remove delays in refund of high value income tax dues by making the process online and tax payer friendly and deduct service tax on the lines of TDS, where service taker deposits the tax".
Ficci also asked to delink the issue of refund from finalisation of the assessment.
"We also request to charge infrastructure consultants service tax via Tax Deduction at Source (TDS) mode," it added.