The Income Tax Department issues refunds, if any, only as an e-refund to the assessee. The process of issuing refunds by way of cheques has been discontinued. To be able to receive the refund amount, the bank account of the assessee should be linked to his permanent account number (PAN) and should have been pre-validated on the income tax e-fi ling portal.

1. Access IT portal
The assessee is required to visit the e-fi ling portal of the Income Tax Department at https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in. To access the portal, one needs to enter user name (PAN of the assessee) and password, along with Captcha code to log in. Those who have not registered with the IT e-fi ling portal need to register themselves beforehand.

2. Choose right tabs
After logging in, the assessee should check the ‘dashboard’ tab. Then, click on the ‘profile settings’ tab to see a drop-down menu of options. Choose the ‘prevalidate your bank account’ option and proceed.

3. Prevalidate account
The assesee will have to enter the bank account number, IFSC code, bank name, mobile number and e-mail ID. Note that the PAN, mobile number and e-mail ID should be the same as that registered with the bank account. After this, the assessee should click on ‘pre-validate’ button. The pre-validation status is sent to the registered e-mail ID and mobile number of the assessee. Alternatively, view your status by logging in to the e-portal, and clicking on ‘profile settings’ and ‘pre-validate your bank account’ tabs.

4. Points to note

It is important for the assessee to first link the PAN to the bank account to be able to pre-validate the bank account.
The assessee can e-verify the income tax return only by using a pre-validated bank account.