Sitharaman Calls for Litigation Prevention on 167th Income Tax Day

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has called upon the Income Tax Department to adopt a dispute-prevention approach, improve tax certainty and accelerate taxpayer services. Addressing the 167th Income Tax Day programme in New Delhi on July 24, she said the Department’s responsibilities now extend beyond revenue mobilisation to include fairness, voluntary compliance, ease of doing business and citizen-focused administration.

The event marked the first Income Tax Day celebration following the implementation of the Income Tax Act, 2025.

E-Filing and Return Processing

The Finance Minister highlighted the growing capacity of the Income Tax e-Filing portal, which was strengthened through additional computing resources and bandwidth. The platform managed more than one crore taxpayer interactions in a single day, with peak activity reaching approximately 1.6 crore interactions.

Up to July 21, taxpayers had filed more than 3.2 crore Income Tax Returns. Of these, around 94% had been verified and 60% processed. The Department had also received over 1.3 crore refund claims, of which 96% were verified and approximately 40% processed.

Sitharaman asked officials to further reduce return-processing timelines, observing that timely refunds support taxpayer confidence and improve liquidity.

Grievance Redressal Performance

During FY 2025–26, the Income Tax Department disposed of approximately 94% of nearly 78,000 grievances submitted through the Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS).

The average grievance-disposal period declined from 57 days to 28 days, while nearly two-thirds of the matters were resolved within three weeks.

Performance also improved on the e-Nivaran platform, where the Department disposed of around 95% of 3.5 lakh grievances. The average resolution period on the platform decreased to 42 days.

The Minister proposed a five-part institutional framework—Recognise, Respond, Redress, Reflect and Reform. She advised officers to examine grievances as a source of administrative feedback and use them to identify areas requiring systemic improvement. CA Sansaar