Prevalidation of Bank Account| Mandatory for Income Tax Refund Credit

Prevalidation of Bank Account Mandatory for Income Tax Refund Credit

A reminder to all the Tax return preparers and the assessees filling your ITR of a very imp Income tax related update brought about for ITR Filing for FY 18-19 onwards.
From March 1, 2019, the I-T department has started issuing income tax refunds only through e-mode. The new rule means that the earlier practice of sending tax refund cheques through Speed Post has been done away with.
In response to the above development, assessees are required to pre-validate their bank account with the income tax e-filing portal to receive a tax refund.
Apart from pre-validating your bank account, you are also required to link your PAN with your bank account as well. If your PAN is not linked with the bank account, then you will not be able to get the income tax refund in your bank account.

Online procedure to pre-validate bank account is as follows:

1. Visit the Income-tax e-filing portal i.e. https://www.incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in/home

2. Click on the ‘Login’ option and enter your login credentials. The user ID is your PAN.

3. Upon logging in successfully, click on ‘Profile Settings’ and choose ‘Pre-validate Your Bank Account’ option.

4. Now, enter your bank account details such as account number, IFSC, bank name, and contact details.

5. Upon clicking the ‘Pre-validate’ button, you will be redirected to a screen that says, “Your request for a pre-validating bank account is submitted.

6. The status of your request will be sent to your registered email ID and mobile number.

7. If the bank account validation is successful, it will display as “Validated” in the Pre-validation tab.