Income tax payers in Himachal Pradesh can now expect to get prompt refund of the payment of excess income tax deducted at source.

The new Chief Commissioner for Income Tax Subhash Chander Gupta today admitted that earlier, the tax payers in the state had to wait for long to get the refunds. He asserted that January onwards, prompt action will be taken by the department to clear all the refund payments for the current financial year.

Replying to a question today after joining at Shimla, Gupta said that so far, there are no backlogs for refunds, but all the cases will be cleared soon. There was delay in processing because some offices in HP could not be connected to the Central Computer Terminal in Delhi, where the final processing was planned to be done earlier, said Gupta.

He added that the work to connect various offices to the central terminal in Delhi is in the final stages, and is likely to be completed by March. Thereafter, the processing of cases will be faster, he said.

Gupta highlighted that though the IT department works on the philosophy of trust, but for the enforcement of tax payment, the department relies on external mode of verification rather than troubling tax payers. The Annual Information Return, submitted by banks and various financial institutions, gives detailed information about the transactions based on PAN numbers of assesses. This is used for follow up in cases of evasion, said Gupta.

He pointed out that the other modes of enforcement are inspection, surveys and searches, under various sections of the Income Tax Act. Gupta stated that in Himachal, the incidence of tax evasion does not seem to be high. The cases that are found while random sampling through computers relate to legal dispute over claiming tax exemption under various sections, he revealed.