If you find that you have overpaid your income tax or if there was an excess tax deduction at source (TDS), there's no need to worry. You have the option to claim a refund for the excess amount when filing your income tax returns. Once you file your returns, the income tax department will review them and process the refund. It's important to note that refunds are now transferred electronically to your bank account linked with your PAN (effective from 1st March 2019).
To ensure a successful refund process, you must pre-validate your bank account on the income tax e-filing portal. Read the guide below on how to pre-validate your bank account.
Prerequisites to Prevalidate Bank Account
Before starting the pre-validation, ensure you have the following prerequisites in order:
- There should be an active account based on your PAN in the income tax portal.
- The bank account must belinked with your PANand registered mobile number.
- Ensure that your bank account mobile number is the same as the one used for the Income Tax portal registration.
Type of Bank Accounts that can be Pre-validated
- Saving Bank Account
- Current Account
- Cash Credit Account
- Overdraft Account
- NRO Account
How to Pre-Validate a Bank Account?
Taxpayers will receive their income tax refund only if their bank account is linked with their PAN (Permanent Account Number). For this purpose, you should “pre-validate your bank account” under the income tax e-filing page.
Online procedure to a pre-validate bank account
Step 1: Visit the income tax e-filing portal at www.incometax.gov.in.
Step 2: Click on the 'Login' option and provide your login credentials (You can choose either PAN or Aadhaar for logging in).
Step 3: Go to ‘My Profile’ and select ‘My Bank Account’ from the left pane.
Step 4: Select the ‘Add Bank Account’ button.
Step 5: Enter bank details such as bank account number, account type, account holder type, IFSC code, bank name and bank branch. Ensure that the PAN, name, mobile number, and email address provided match those registered with your bank account to ensure successful pre-validation. Therefore, before proceeding, make sure to link or update your PAN with your bank account.
Step 6: Next, click on the ‘Validate’ button. You have submitted the request for validating the bank account.
Step 7: The pre-validation process is automatic. Your bank details and request will be sent to your bank. The validation status will be updated on the portal within 24 hours.
- If the validation is successful, your bank account details will appear in the ‘Added Bank Accounts’ tab with the status ‘Validated and EVC enabled’.
- If the validation fails, the details are displayed under ‘Failed Bank Accounts’ tab. The failed bank accounts can be re-submitted for re-validation.
Note: EVC can be enabled only for one bank account. In case you have added multiple bank accounts, you may click on the 3 vertical dots for a particular bank account & enable EVC
Check the status of your request
You can check the status of your request in the following ways:
- Upon clicking ‘Pre-validate’ button, you will be redirected to a screen that says, “Your request for pre-validating bank account is submitted. The validation process is in progress and the status will be updated shortly.”
- Visit the income tax e-filing website and log in. Click the ‘My Bank Account’ option under the ‘Profile Settings’ tab. The status of your request will be displayed.
- If the bank account validation has failed, the information on the same will be displayed. You can add/remove bank account after 24 hours.
You must also know that mobile number or email address cannot be changed without revalidation from the bank.
Common Validation Errors on Income Tax Portal
| Error | Reasons | Solution |
| Restricted Refund | Bank account is pre-validated successfully, but there is a name mismatch | > Update the name on PAN or name in bank records |
| PAN - Bank account - IFSC linkage failed | PAN not available with bank. Bank account details provided by you don't belong to you or are incorrect. | > Contact branch to link your PAN with the bank account or update KYC > Submit re-validation request |
| Invalid IFSC | In case of bank mergers, the IFSC code may change | > Click Re-Validate, > Enter the correct IFSC > Submit re-validation request |
| Account number does not exist | Wrong account number entered | > Click Re-Validate > Enter the correct bank account number > Submit re-validation request |
| - Bank account closed / inactive - Zero balance / Inactive account - Litigated Account - Account frozen or blocked | Unusable bank account | > Click Re-Validate, > Try with a different bank account number. |
Illustration
Consider a case where your name in PAN card has a mistake in how the name is spelt. If your name is ‘Ramesh Kumar’ as per your birth certificate, Aadhaar, bank passbook, and driving license, but says ‘Ramesh Talmaar’ in your PAN. You have no clue that it can be corrected and you have been using the same card. You need to correct your PAN data and link the same with Aadhaar.
Now, you have quoted the PAN while pre-validating the bank account on income tax e-filing portal, you can check the status of your request after 36 hours of the request. Your request will be rejected as the name in PAN does not match the name associated with the bank account.
As per the latest provision amended during the Budget 2019, you can use Aadhaar number in place of PAN for return filing. This provision proves useful in the case of the example above. Ramesh can validate his bank account using Aadhaar card (his name is correct in Aadhaar card). At the same time, it is essential that the PAN is corrected and linked with the Aadhaar in the e-filing portal.
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