Exporters have already been paid IGST refund of over Rs.1.12 lakh Crores and over 83,500 exporters have been benefited by these refunds. This shows that the government’s efforts to fast track refunds under GST especially to exporters are yielding results.
Refunds of only Rs. 3,604 Crores are pending with Customs and out of about 185,000 exporters, a total of 6,421 exporters (about 3.4% only) including some ‘star exporters’ have been identified as risky and hence, red flagged. Even some of the ‘star exporters’ are not traceable.
While the focus is on quick disbursal of pending refunds to exporters, data analytics has been used to identify ‘risky’ exporter entities that take input tax credit fraudulently and monetize it by paying IGST and taking refund thereof or taking refund of the accumulated ITC.
These exporters are being subject to KYC and verification process before the grant of refund. The verification so far have revealed that 1,241 exporters are not traceable at their given addresses, which include 8 ‘star exporters’.
In addition, adverse verification reports have been received in the case of 399 exporters, which also include 4 ‘star exporters’.
Since the advent of GST, 77% of India’s exports have been under Letter of Undertaking (LUT), which are unaffected by the verification exercise being done by the CBIC officials.
Even in respect of the exporters identified as risky, the Government is taking all necessary steps to expedite the verification.
At the same time, the Government remains concerned about the misuse of the facility of ITC credit and refunds by few unscrupulous exporters.
