Apart from getting the income tax refund credited in your bank account, pre-validation will allow you e-verifying your ITR by selecting “EVC – Through Bank Account Number” option.

Unlike the previous years, you may not get the income tax refund credited in your bank account, unless the account is pre-validated. For this, your bank account must be linked with your PAN and the name in the bank account must match with the name given in the PAN Card.

Earlier, mentioning of bank account numbers in the Income Tax Return (ITR) Form and selecting the default account was sufficient to receive the amount of income tax refund in the default bank account.

But it may not be sufficient now to just mention your bank account numbers in the ITR Form to get the income tax refund credited in the default bank account.

“No, pre-validation is required. If the account is not pre-validated, refunds are not credited,” said CA Karan Batra, Founder and CEO of CharteredClub.com.

Apart from getting the income tax refund credited in your bank account, pre-validation will also allow you to get Electronic Verification Code (EVC) as an One Time Password (OTP) in the mobile number linked with your bank account – by selecting “EVC – Through Bank Account Number” option – for e-verifying your ITR.

Here are the steps to pre-validate your bank account to get Electronic Service Credit (ECS) of your income tax refund in the account –

1. 1. Visit the incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in portal and log in by entering your PAN, password and captcha code.
   2. After logging in, go to the profile setting tab and click the ‘Pre-validate your Bank Account’ option. It will open a list of your bank accounts integrated with the e-filing portal. You will also get each account status in terms of being validated and Electronic Verification Code (EVC) enabled.
   3. Only one bank account may be EVC enabled. So, if one of your bank accounts is EVC enabled, you won’t be EVC enable other accounts.
   4. If you prefer to receive income tax refund in a different account, click on the ‘Add’ button and enter your bank account details – account number, account type, IFSC and contact details i.e. mobile number and email ID.
   5. In case the following conditions are fulfilled, click on the ‘Pre-validate’ button after entering all your bank and contact details. On doing so, you will get an acknowledgment of your transaction.

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• Your PAN should be seeded with the bank account in the bank database and your name as per your PAN Card should match your name in the bank account. If it matches, then the account will be pre-validated.
• If your mobile No. and email ID, seeded with your bank account, also matches with your e-filing account-registered mobile number and email address, then such an account may be used for generation of EVC to verify your return.