The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) issued a clarification on the issue relating to delay in processing of IGST Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) refund to exporters in due errors in Export General Manifest ( EGM ).
The CBEC circular points out that Non-filing of EGM at the gateway port or information mismatch between local and gateway EGMs are one of the main reason for holding up the refunds in Inland Container Depots (ICD).
“Absence of electronic EGMs and their integration with local EGMs has been the major obstacle in the processing of refund claims in the case of exports from ICDs.”
“In order to overcome this issue, the Shipping lines have been mandated to include the shipping bills originating from ICDs while filing the electronic EGMs at the gateway ports. In cases where the EGMs have not incorporated the shipping bills pertaining to ICDs, the shipping lines/ agents have been asked to file supplementary EGMs. While the shipping lines have been largely co-operative filing regular or supplementary EGMs for Cargo originating from ICDs, there are still many instances where no EGMs have been filed or EGMs have been filed with errors. This is causing the avoidable delay in processing of refund claims. The jurisdictional officers at the Gateway Port may initiate swift penal actions against shipping lines/ agents who failed to file either regular or supplementary EGMs electronically for the Cargo originating from ICDs,” the Circular said.
The circular prescribes certain steps to be followed by the jurisdictional officers to ensure a hassle-free processing of Refund claims.
It further points out the reasons for mismatch of information provided in local and gateway EGMs. “the procedure to be followed for each type of errors has been clearly delineated in the step by step guide issued by the Directorate of System for dealing with the errors. In case of specific difficulties, the same may be taken up with Directorate of Systems.”
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