NEW DELHI: With industry bodies levelling allegations that several thousand crores worth of Goods and Services Tax (GST) refunds due to exporters have remained unprocessed, the Central Board of Indirect taxes and Customs (CBIC) has said that around Rs 7,000 crore has already been processed through special refund measures in the past ten days.
According to the indirect tax authority, the Special Relief Fortnight which was kicked off on May 31 has cleared a significant number of claims. “More than Rs 7,000 crore of IGST/ ITC refunds sanctioned till now during the ongoing Special Refund Fortnight,” the CBIC said through a statement on Twitter, going on to ask exporters and traders to “avail this opportunity… and visit their jurisdictional GST office or Customs House/Port and settle pending claims”.
The government had rolled out the Special Relief Fortnight as an emergency measure to give relief to exporters after the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) claimed that the amount of exports stuck with the government was as much as Rs 20,000 crore. “... many exporters have not been able to file the refund of input tax credit (ITC) due to technical glitches, since ITC and exports happened in different months,” FIEO president Ganesh Kumar Gupta had said.
The government however, clarified later that unprocessed GST refunds stand at around Rs 14,000 crore and announced its second clearance drive.
During the first clearance drive organised between March 15-30, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) had cleared refunds totalling Rs 17,616 crore. This comprised Rs 9,604 crore of Integrated GST refunds, Rs 5,510 crore ITC refund by the Centre and Rs 2,502 crore ITC refund by states.
During the ongoing 15-day special programme, which began on May 31 and will end on June 14, the government has said it would initiate refunds for both Integrated GST (IGST) paid on exports and GST paid on inputs. According to sources, around Rs 7,000 crore of IGST refunds and around Rs 2,000 crore of refunds paid as inputs as of March 31.
Alternate measures
This week, the CBIC had allowed clearance of GST refunds based on PAN of exporters if the refunds were held up due to mismatches in the GST identification numbers entered in shipping bills or return forms