The Commerce minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday made an appeal to the Finance Ministry that the process of refund of GST input tax credit should be made online.
Suresh Prabhu, showing his concern regarding emerging loopholes in the Input tax credit refund system and thus, in collaboration with the revenue department officials, he met the exporters to discuss upon the type of problems they are going through and the sector has been facing to till date.
The topics related to Banking Issues, eg. caution listing of exporters, third party/ third country exports and the list of items included in the list which are likely to be traded with Iran was also discussed. An official Statement came which said that the Finance Ministry officials would discuss the important issues that were flagged in the meeting with Banks, which is going to be held on January 22.
Prabhu showed his worry regarding the declining export credit as recorded in recent months and suggested that Banks should be given the responsibility to encourage the flow of credit to the export sector. The MSMEs should be encouraged in particular for generating more employment.
The commerce minister laid emphasis on making input tax credit (ITC) refund online which would ensure that the export refund is seamless along with being transparent and accountable.
The Data says that till last November, Rs 91,149 crore has been issued to the exporters as Goods and Services Tax (GST) refund. This was 93.77 per cent of the total claims done with the tax authorities, which is a major portion.
Apart from IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax) process being online, the ITC refund claims still requires some manual work which is a drawback.
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The Representatives of the export sector in the meeting highlighted the problems of pre-import under advance authorisation. They made a request to the Commerce Minister to get the condition notified and the problem could come to an end with a retrospective effect.
Suresh Prabhu urged the DGFT and Department of Revenue belonging to the Ministry of Finance, to look into the issue so that genuine exporters do not get harassed.
The delegates and Representatives from Federation of Indian Export Organisations, Pharmexcil, Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, Engineering Exports Promotion Council and Chemexcil had attended the meeting.
