GST Update Vol 56 20th July 2018
A. CHANGES IN THE GST REGIME
Special drive refund fortnight
After the first special drive refund fortnight held in March 2018, the government had started a
second special drive refund fortnight from 31st May, 2018 to 16th June, 2018. This facilitated all
types of refund claims in which customs, central and state GST officers strived to clear GST refund
applications. This included refunds of IGST paid on exports, refunds of unutilized ITC and all
other GST refunds submitted in GST refund form. The CBIC has now observed third special drive
refund fortnight from 16th July, 2018 to 30th July, 2018 to clear pending refunds.
Help desk for IGST refunds on exports
As a part of the ongoing special drive refund fortnight, the CBIC vide Circular no. 21/2018 –
Customs dated 18th July, 2018 have decided to set up help desks for expeditious resolution of IGST
refund related issues. The help desks would be located at various locations mentioned in the
Circular, and would function for a period of 2 weeks up to 1st August, 2018. They will be manned by
officers of customs who shall be nominated by the jurisdictional customs zone.
Rectification facility for IGST refunds on exports
The IGST refund claims by exporters are not being processed as the exporters in several cases have
mentioned PAN instead of GSTIN in the shipping bills, even though GSTIN has been correctly
mentioned while filing the GST returns. To resolve this issue, an alternative mechanism
with an officer interface was provided for the shipping bills filed till 30th April, 2018.
Despite making exporters aware about the need to have identical details in invoices given in
shipping bills and GST returns, it has been observed that a few exporters continue to commit such
errors. Therefore, in view of the ongoing special drive refund fortnight, giving high priority to
the interests of exporters, it has been decided by the CBIC to extend the rectification facility
to shipping bills filed up to 30th June, 2018.
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