In a massive relief to tax assessees, the Income Tax Department has issued over 2.1 crore refunds amounting to ?1.22 lakh crore last fiscal.

This is a 8.9-per cent increase from refunds worth ?1.12 lakh crore paid by it in 2014-15. The department had issued tax refunds of ?89,664 crore in 2013-14. “The optimum use of technology helped in the expeditious disposal of tax assessment and refunds in the last two years,” the Finance Ministry said on Friday.

It further said that 94 per cent of all income tax returns were filed online in 2015-16 and 4.14 crore returns processed at Central Processing Centre, Bengaluru without any human intervention.

The Ministry also said that indirect tax collections have shown turnaround last fiscal. The indirect tax to the gross domestic product (GDP) ratio for 2015-16 is about 5.17 per cent as compared with 4.36 per cent in the previous fiscal.

“The indirect tax: GDP ratio for 2016-17 is estimated to be 5.20 per cent,” it said.

Indirect tax collection amounted to ?7.11 lakh crore in 2015-16 and is estimated at ?7.79 lakh crore this fiscal.

Meanwhile, the Ministry also said that e-payment of central excise and service tax refunds and rebates through RTEGS/NEFT has been implemented and 80 per cent of the refund amount is granted within five days for service exporters.