Central Board of indirect taxes eases GST refund process to aid businesses

With businesses moving at a slow pace owing to the novel coronavirus outbreak, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has decided to expedite its GST refund process.

According to government data dating back to March 30, the CBIC has processed 12,923 refund applications involving claims worth Rs 5,575 crore and 7,873 claims worth Rs 3,854 crore were processed just last week.

In the 39th GST Council meeting, it was decided that the GST refund process should be smoothened to help business. In order to remove the wrinkles from the system, CBIC made ‘declaration of classification codes’ a part of the application itself. Changes in the refund process were made on the recommendation of business houses that had urged the GST Council to expedite the declaration process.

In addition, bunching of tax periods across financial years to facilitate the claim of refund by exporters has also been made available. This would apply to applications filed after March 31, 2020.

To further assist business owners, the due date of all such applications which were due during March 20, 2020, and June 29, 2020, has been extended to June 30, 2020.