With just a few days left for the roll out of Goods and Services Tax Act (GST), the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, yesterday issued a Trade Notice regarding the changes in IEC with the introduction the new indirect tax law.
The new trade notice issued by the Government yesterday stated that traders and entities can use either GSTN or PAN for the purpose of import and export of goods.
As per the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulations Act), 1992, persons are required to obtain an Importer Exporter Code (IEC) number, granted by the Director General of Foreign Trade or the officer authorized by the Director General in this behalf. The IEC Number is PAN based.
The Trade Notice stated that with the implementation of the GST w.e.f. (the notified date), GSTIN would be used for purposes of (i) credit flow of IGST on import of goods, and (ii) refund or rebate of IGST related to export of goods. Registration No. under GST, called GSTIN, is a 15digit alpha numeric code with PAN prefixed by State Code and suffixed by 3 digit details of business verticals of the PAN holder. It is stated that “as GSTIN will be used for the purposes mentioned above, it thereby assumes importance as identifier at the transaction level. In view of this, it has been decided that importer/exporter would need to declare only GSTIN (wherever registered with GSTN) at the time of import and export of goods.The PAN level aggregation of data would automatically happen in the system.”
It further stated that “Since obtaining GSTIN is not compulsory for all importers / exporters below a threshold limit of turnover, all exporters / importers may not register with GSTIN [barring compulsory registration in certain cases as provided in section 24 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (12 of 2017) or in cases where either credit is claimed of IGST], therefore, GSTIN cannot become universal, as IEC is for import/export business. Further, DGFT recognizes only the corporate entity (single identity) and not individual transactions.”
“As a measure of ease of doing business, it has been decided to keep the identity of an entity uniform across the Ministries/Departments. Henceforth (with the implementation of GST), PAN of an entity will be used for the purpose of IEC, i.e., IEC will be issued by DGFT with the difference that it will be alpha numeric (instead of 10 digit numeric at present) and will be same as PAN of an entity. For new applicants, w.e.f. the notified date, application for IEC will be made to DGFT and applicant’s PAN will be authorized as IEC. For residuary categories under Para 2.07 of HBP 201520, the IEC will be either UIN issued by GSTN and authorized by DGFT or any common number to be notified by DGFT.” It added.
Read the full text of the Trade Notice below.
