About 92 per cent of the income-tax refund claims for fiscal 2007-08 will be settled without the taxpayers needing to produce TDS certificates, as the Government has relaxed the criteria in this regard.

According the relaxed criteria on settling the income-tax refunds for the last fiscal, for tax assessee whose tax is deducted up to Rs 5 lakh and who has filed refund claims up to Rs 25,000, TDS certificates like Form-16 or challans will not be verified.

The Finance Ministry in a statement here said in spite of manpower shortage, refunds were issued to over 48 lakh taxpayers last fiscal compared to about 44.5 refunds in the previous fiscal.

"It is the endeavour of the Income-Tax Department to provide better taxpayer services, particularly in the area of refunds," the ministry said in a statement here.

Despite larger refund payouts, the Government was able to collect a whopping 71.28 per cent higher revenue from direct taxes at Rs 22,840 crore for the first two months of this fiscal.

The Government paid Rs 9,014 crore in the first two months of this fiscal as against Rs 5,037 crore a year ago, the statement said.