The Citizen’s Charter 2014 of Income Tax Department includes ‘Redressal of grievances’ within the specified timeline of 60 days, as one of the key taxpayer services provided by the Department. Redressal of grievances has been included as a key result area in the Interim Action Plan for the First Quarter of 2015-16 issued in March 2015. Instructions have been issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 26th March, 2015 to all the Principal Chief Commissioners and Principal Director Generals of Income Tax to include redressal of public grievances as work of utmost priority in their work plan and to instruct all offices under their jurisdiction to dispose of the grievances pending with them, as per the Action Plan for the First Quarter of the FY 2015-16. This has been followed up with Video Conferencing of Chairperson, Central Board of Direct Taxes with Principal Chief Commissioners and Principal Director Generals of Income Tax on 9.4.2015.

 Most of the grievances received from public with regard to Income Tax matters pertain to delay in issue of refunds and non-credit of taxes paid. The delay is mainly due to wrong quoting of details by the taxpayers in the Returns/Challans, mismatch of TDS reported in returns and the TDS credit available on the System, non-submission of requisite information/documents to fill the gap by the assessee/deductor, change of PAN jurisdiction, records of old assessment years being not easily available with jurisdiction Assessing Officer etc.

 This was stated by Shri Jayant Sinha, Minister of State in Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha .

Redressal of grievances: administrative priority to resolve taxpayer complaints within prescribed timeline under a departmental action plan. The Income Tax Department has made Redressal of grievances a core taxpayer service with a prescribed administrative timeline and included it as a key result area in the Interim Action Plan; CB DT issued instructions to senior field heads to prioritise and ensure disposal of pending grievances under that Action Plan. Predominant causes of grievance-related delay are refund processing and tax credit issues arising from incorrect return/challan details, TDS mismatches, non submission of requisite documents, changes in PAN jurisdiction, and inaccessibility of older assessment records.