The Department of Revenue in a recent circular has said that exporters will be able to rectify mismatches in the shipping bills and GST returns for bills filed till July 31 this year in order to claim IGST refund.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs had come out with an alternative mechanism with an officer interface to resolve invoice mismatches for shipping bills filed till November 15 last year. Identical details should be provided in invoices given in shipping bills and GST returns. However, there are errors in several filings. Now, the Board has extended the rectification facility for bills filed till July end to claim IGST refund. The field offices will conduct outreach programmes to create awareness among stakeholders to have identical details in the invoices.

The Apparel Export Promotion Council had represented to the Union Government the problems faced by the garment exporters in getting the IGST refunds and had sought extension of date to resolve the mismatch issues. It had said that exporters should be permitted to rectify errors in invoices till the end of December this year. A tool should be available as a permanent feature that would permit the exporters who go in for IGST refund to manually rectify mismatches or revise the invoices online.

“Moreover, an auto correction provision should be provided in the shipping bill so that it takes only the invoice number up to 16 digits and mismatch problems can be removed,” the Council said in the memorandum.

Further, though the procedure for claiming IGST refunds is fully automated, it was modified recently and exporters can claim IGST refund and Drawback only after 100 % examination of export cargo. The apparel sector is going through a period of liquidity crunch. While stringent action should be taken against fraudulent practices, those who are genuine should get the refunds on time. Hence, the 100 % verification process should be waived for apparel exporters and there should be an alternative mechanism to protect the interests of genuine exporters, the Council said.

Published On : 30-08-2019

Source : The Hindu