The government will clear pending GST refunds of exporters by November-end and over the next six months no tax will be levied on exports as the Council has decided to revert to the pre-GST era, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said.
Over July-August, an estimated Rs 67,000 crore has accumulated as the Integrated GST (IGST), of which only about Rs 5,000-10,000 crore will be due as refunds to exporters, he told PTI in an interview here.
While no tax will has to be paid on goods to be exported in the remaining months of current fiscal, from April 1 an e- wallet service will be launched that will give exporters notional credits that can be used to pay GST, he said. The credit in the wallet would be transferable.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST), the amalgamation of over a dozen indirect taxes like excise duty and VAT, does not provide for any exemptions, and so exporters are required to first pay Integrated-GST (IGST) on manufactured goods and claim refunds after exporting them. This put severe liquidity crunch, particularly on aggregators. To ease their problems, the GST Council on Friday decided a package for them that includes extending the Advance Authorisation / Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) / 100% EOU (Export Oriented Unit) schemes to sourcing inputs from abroad as well as domestic suppliers till March 31, thus not requiring to pay IGST.
"For a period of 6 months we are actually reverting back to the pre-GST scenario (where manufacturing exporters or those who manufacture goods for exports did not pay any tax). So, they have no reason for any complain now," he said.
A nominal 0.1% tax will be levied on merchant exporter as they themselves do not manufacture. "Under GST even a merchant exporter who collects goods from many producers and exports has to pay full rate of duty and seek refund. But, he is only an aggregator. So, that was the problem and it has been sorted out," he said.