How to get an income tax refund if you have a prevalidated bank account?

If you have not yet received the amount of the income tax refund for the last year, check whether the bank account you have chosen to claim the refund is pre-validated. Since it has been compulsory to pre-validate bank accounts from the last Assessment Year (i.e. AY 2019-20) to have the Electronic Service Credit (ECS) income tax return in your bank account. So, submitting your Income Tax Return (ITR) is not sufficient to have your bank account credited with the income tax refund, so you have to pre-validate the account where you want the amount to be deposited.    

If in the current Assessment Year (AY 2020-21) you have some tax refunds, please ensure that the bank account you are going to choose in the ITR is pre-validated to get the refund balance credited. You can also visit the incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in site to pre-validate it if you have already filed your income return and specified a bank account, which is not pre-validated, to seek the refund amount.  

Steps to pre-validate your bank account

• Visit incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in and log in using your PAN, password and captcha code.
• Now select the ‘Prevalidate your Bank Account’ option under the profile setting section.
• In case you have not pre-validated your bank account, enter the required details such as bank account number, account type, IFSC and contact details i.e. mobile number and email ID of that account on which you want to get the refund.
• Now click on the ‘Prevalidate’ icon and if your PAN is linked with your bank account in the bank database and if your name fits your name in the bank account as per your PAN Card, it will be pre-validated, given that your mobile number and email ID, linked with your bank account, will also meet your mobile number and email address recorded with your e-filing account.
• A list containing the pre-validated account(s) will open under the ‘Pre-validate your bank account’ option once one or more bank account(s) are already pre-validated. You have to click on the ‘Add’ button and follow the pre validation procedure to pre-validate it if you wish to get the income tax refund on some other account.
• It is also important to pre-validate a bank account if you want to e-verify your ITR with the Electronic Verification Code (EVC). As only EVC will be made available to access the authentication code/one-time password for a pre-validated bank account.