The highest amount refunded by the income tax department in the last assessment year 2008-09 was about Rs 45 crore, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The highest refund issued in assessment year 2006-07 was for Rs 12.77 crore, while a very high amount worth Rs 84 crore was given as refund in the year 2007-08, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in replying to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
?The issuance of refunds is in accordance with the guidelines. It has been an endeavour of the department to issue refunds to taxpayers at the earliest,? Mukherjee said.
However, the number of refunds pending for assessment year 2008-09 in Punjab was 1,91,243 while in Haryana about 14.5 lakh refunds were due.
Among these, refunds of senior citizens pending in Punjab were nearly 2,500 and in Haryana 1,560, he said.
When asked if the staff and the officials were responsible for delay in refunds, he said the delay in issue of refunds is at times attributable to assessees on account of deficiencies in bank account details, wrong address and lack of PAN details.
Explaining further he said, the statutory time limit to process returns and issue refunds for returns received in the financial year 2008-09 is March 31, 2010.