Out of these, six crore ITRs have been processed, thus amounting to 88 per cent of the verified returns, the ministry of finance quoted the I-T department in the statement. It added that more than 2.45 crore refunds for AY 2023-24 have already been issued.

Stating that the efforts for providing ‘seamless and expeditious’ taxpayer services are being continuously strengthened, the income tax department said the average processing time of the returns had been reduced to ten days for returns filed for the current assessment year 2023-24 as compared to 82 days for AY 2019-20 and 16 days for AY 2022-23.

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The income tax department said there are 14 lakh ITRs which were filed but are awaiting verification by the taxpayers as on September 4. The department said failure to verify the ITRs results in delays in processing as the return can only be processed after the verification has been completed by the taxpayer.

The I-T department pointed to 12 lakh verified ITRs in which further information had been sought by the department and for which communication has been sent to the taxpayers through their registered e-filing accounts. “Taxpayers are requested to respond to such communication expeditiously”, the I-T department stated.

The income tax department said there were ITRs which had been processed and refunds have also been determined. However, the I-T department had been unable to issue refunds because the taxpayers have not yet validated their bank account in which the refund is to be credited. Taxpayers are requested to validate their bank accounts through the e-filing portal, it added.

“The Department remains committed to speedy processing and expeditious issue of refunds and solicits the cooperation of the taxpayers”, the statement read.