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CBIC takes more steps to sort out pending IGST Refund

Published: Oct 25, 2018

By TIOL News Service

NEW DELHI, OCT 25, 2018: IGST exports refund continues to be a serious bone of contention in the GST regime. No doubt, the CBIC has made some extra efforts to speed up the process but the problem continues to exist for many reasons. Through a Circular the CBIC has admitted that it has received many representations where the refund scroll has been generated for a much lesser IGST amount than what has actually been paid against the exported goods. Broadly, this has happened due to:

a. Error made by the exporter/CHA in declaring the IGST paid amount in SB or,

b. Cases where Compensation Cess paid amount was not entered by the exporter in the SB along with the IGST paid amount or the same details were not transmitted by GSTN, and the scroll consequently got generated only for the IGST amount or,

c. Typographical mistake by the customs officer while sanctioning the refund through officer interface.

In order to provide relief to exporters, the Directorate of Systems has now provided a facility in ICES for the processing and sanctioning of the eligible differential IGST refund. The facility would be officer interface based and is similar to the procedure for processing certain SB005 refund claims refer Circular No 05/2018- Customs dated 23.02.2018. This facility would be available only for cases where Shipping Bills have been filed till 15.11.2018. However, exporters need to be cautious while filing details in Shipping Bill as a similar facility may not be available in future for the same mistake for referred shipping bill. Also, Customs Officers while processing claims using officer interface should exercise due diligence so that mistakes are not repeated again.

In order to claim the differential amount, the exporter is required to submit a duly filled and signed Revised Refund Request (RRR) annexed to this circular to the designated AC/DC A scanned copy of the RRR may also be mailed to dedicated email address of Customs locations from where exports took place. The designated/concerned AC/DC will then proceed to sanction the revised amount after due verification through the option provided in ICES, a detailed advisory on which will be communicated by DG Systems to all the System Managers shortly. Once the revised amount is approved by the designated AC/DC in the system, a fresh scroll will be available for generation for the differential amount only.

The CBIC has stated that only those SBs which have already been scrolled shall be available in this facility. Further, this facility can be used only once for each eligible SB to sanction the revised IGST amount. Thus, utmost care may be taken by the exporter while submitting the RRR as well as the sanctioning officer while sanctioning the revised amount as no further provision will be available for revising the refund sanction again.

With this facility, it is hoped that the eligible exporters will come forward for rectification of the mistakes to enable sanction of balance refund amount.

See Circular