verified so far and forwarded to CBEC for facilitating
disbursement of refunds. Separately, the government has also
refunded Rs 2,000 crore as input tax credit to exporters,
Sarna said.
Under GST, exporters are required to pay IGST on exports and
then claim refunds. The second type of refunds to exporters
under GST involve refund of GST paid on purchase of inputs.
For refund of IGST paid on exports, the exporters are
required to file GSTR 3 B and table 6A of GSTR 1 on the GSTN
portal and shipping bills on the customs EDI (electronic
data interchange) system.
For refund of the unutilised input tax credit on inputs used
in making exports, the exporters are required to file Form
GST RFD- 01A on the GST portal. In instructions issued to
Customs authorities by CBEC on October 9, the CBEC had said
that filing of correct EGM is a must for treating shipping
bill or bill of export as a refund claim.
Explaining the errors filed in the refund claims, Sarna said
that in some instances, exporters have filled metric tonne
(weight) of exported goods instead of the refund amount. Or,
in some cases, the shipping bill has a number in place of an
alphabet. “Some things are missing, there are some blank
spaces, the system won’t accept until that gets corrected.
That rectification has to be done by the exporters,” she
said.
Similarly, there are EGM (Export General Manifest)
mismatches or invoice mismatches in the refund claims by
exporters. “I have been asking CBEC officials to reach out
to exporters. I recently visited Hyderabad, there we have
started sending e-mails to exporters that this is the flaw,
please come forward and repair it, so that we can give the
refund. CBEC officials are calling people and asking them to
come and rectify their mistake,” Sarna said.
As per a CBEC release dated November 29, the quantum of IGST
refund claims as filed through shipping bills during July to
October 2017, was approximately Rs 6,500 crore and the
quantum of refund of unutilised credit on inputs or input
services filed on GSTN portal, was about Rs 30 crore. The
refund claims have subsequently been revised upwards to
around Rs 13,000 crore, but only about half of them have
complete details to facilitate complete verification,
officials said.
A study as part of RBI’s Mint Street Memos series had
earlier this month had stated that the implementation and
refund delays under the new indirect tax regime of GST seem
to have led to working capital constraints for firms, which
in turn might have hurt their exports in October 2017.
However, the subsequent initiatives taken by the government
since then appear to have significantly alleviated
exporters’ concerns which got reflected in the exports
growth pick up in November and December 2017, it had said.
The study had indicated that a short-term liquidity shock
impacted firms in the export sector, with the firms with
high working capital/sales ratio such as such as, petroleum
and gems and jewellery sectors hit the most due to the
liquidity constraints.