By Prarthana Mitra
The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) on Sunday sanctioned GST refunds worth about Rs 127 billion -80% of the eligible refund claims from exporters- according to official sources.
“IGST refund claims worth Rs 86 billion till January 31 were lying with the CBEC,” a senior official informed PTI. “Of this, Rs 77 billion worth claims have been sanctioned so far.” About Rs 28 billion worth eligible refunds which are pending are also expected to be cleared soon.
He added that out of the Rs 69 billion due till February end in claims by exporters who filed for a refund of their input tax, the CBEC has sanctioned about Rs 50 billion. Additionally, exporters who paid State GST (SGST) have also been issued refunds of about Rs 25 billion.
The refund process has been underway since late last year when CBEC took the claims of those exporters who paid Integrated GST (IGST) by filling up Table 6A and those claiming input credit filling form RFD-01A.
Centre intervened to speed up the process
Ever since the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax, exporters have been complaining of the delay in GST refunds that they were detrimental to their working capital. 70% of refunds were stuck even after eight months had passed since the implementation of the new tax regime according to media reports from last month.
CBEC had set up refund facilitation camps in their field offices last month, to assist exporters inaccurately filing their refund claims and rectify errors in the same, after discovering several discrepancies with forms submitted to the customs department and those with the GST Network (GSTN).”
Furthermore, analysis of GSTN acquired data indicates that exporters filed claims of much higher values than the GST filed by then, and thus were not forwarded to Customs.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention and subsequent discussions with the finance and commerce ministries, last month clearance was fast-tracked.
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