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 ₹67,000 crore has accumulated as the Integrated GST (IGST), of which only about ₹5,000-10,000 crore will be due as refunds to exporters, he told PTI in an interview here.
While no tax has to be paid on goods to be exported in the remaining months of the 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.
Under GST, exporters are required to first pay Integrated-GST 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 per cent 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 six 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.