NEW DELHI: More than half the individuals and 45% of businesses received income tax refunds within a month, a key factor for more than 80% of the respondents of a CII survey, indicating that they have greater trust in the tax department.Faster return processing and issue of refunds has been a thrust area for the government and the survey indicates that the feedback has been positive.Until a few years ago, until the process was automated, refunds would take as much as a year.While around 88% of the individuals and firms covering a sample of over 3,500 respondents said refunds were faster than five years ago, 65-70% of those polled believed that wait time is shorter than a year ago.

Over 62% of the respondents found the refund process "very convenient", according to the survey.When asked about TDS system, three-fourths of individuals said there was no excess deduction, but results clearly pointed to scope for improvement when it came to businesses as only 22% responded by saying they did not pay extra TDS.

At least 26% of the business entities said they had paid 10-20% above their liability."The extensive measures, which have been introduced by the government in the recent years to streamline, simplify and automate the taxation regime have borne rich dividends as is evident from the upbeat survey results on assessing speed and efficiency of income tax refunds conducted by CII," said R Dinesh, who leads the industry lobby.