OFFICE OF THE PRINCIPAL ADDITIONAL DIRECTOR GENERAL OF SYSTEMS & DATA MANAGEMENT
GST & CENTRAL EXCISE, GST BHAVAN, NO. 26/1, MAHATHMA GANDHI ROAD,
NUNGAMBAKKAM, CHENNAI -34
Tele: 044-28331101 Fax:044-28331104
Mail: dgschennai@icegate.gov.in
C. No IV/26/11/2017 Systems(S)
Date: 17.04.2020
To
Pr Commissioners/ Commissioners
All GST Zones,
CBIC.
Madam/Sir,
Sub: Issues Related to Refund of Excess Balance in Cash Ledger
The online refunds module has been implemented on 26.09.2019 and the field formations are processing the refunds filed by the Tax Payer in the common portal. This office has been continuously evaluating and monitoring the tickets raised by the field officers and taking corrective action. The frequent system related issues noticed and the number (approximate) of claims pending due to the issue thereof, as on date are as under:
(i) System error while issuing payment advice- 2533
(ii) Bank validation issues- 2000
(iii) Acknowledgment already exists for this ARN -125 ARNs
(iv) Missing ARNs pertaining to Excess Balance in Cash Ledger Refunds-2400 ARNs
(v) Payment Disbursement Failure cases where initially success was communicated by GSTN- 154 ARNs
(vi) Duplicate ARNs generated in GSTN for same Tax Period 107- ARNs (Exact Number pertaining to CBIC not known)
(vii) Previous payment advice number not available for reissue error while resubmitting failed payment advices- 5 ARNs
(viii) Missing ARNs filed by TDS registrants- (Exact number not known)
All the above issues had/have GSTN dependency and the same have been taken up with GSTN by raising SDM tickets immediately after the issues are reported by the field officers. This office also constantly engages with GSTN through emails/phone calls/webex/VC for early resolution of the issues.
2. Of the above, two issues related to refund ARNs pertaining to Excess Balance in Electronic Cash Ledger have since been resolved and the same are brought out through this advisory for information and necessary action.
3. Acknowledgement (RFD02) already exists for this CRN:
(i) As per the design, GSTN system was supposed to auto acknowledge the ARNs pertaining to the Excess Balance in Electronic Cash Ledger refunds. However, in the initial days of implementation, due to a glitch in the GSTN System, for some ARNs the auto acknowledgement was not issued. When this was brought to their notice, GSTN while acknowledging the issue had requested CBIC to make a provision in the system to allow officers to issue acknowledgement in such cases as an interim measure. Accordingly, change was made in the system (back end) to allow officers to issue acknowledgement. This change was working fine for most of the cases.
(ii) However, while doing so, for some ARNs an error-“Acknowledgement (RFD02) already exists for this CRN” was received from GSTN. The issue was taken up with GSTN and the root cause was analyzed. It was found that in these cases, GSTN system had actually auto acknowledged the ARN but failed to share the details with CBIC System. CBIC System presumed that acknowledgement has not been issued and allowed the officers to issue acknowledgement for the ARNs. Some officers have also issued deficiency memo for these ARNs. Since GSTN System has already issued auto acknowledgement to the ARNs, we were receiving the mentioned error. A total of 125 ARNs were affected by this issue.
(iii) Since the auto acknowledgement issued by GSTN were available in the Tax Payer’s dashboard, GSTN in a webex held on 06.04.2020, informed that they have made some changes in their system to ensure that this issue does not happen for prospective cases. However, for retrospective cases where error has already occurred, they suggested that the acknowledgement/ deficiency memo issued by the officer has to be deleted in the CBIC System and the ARNs should be moved to the pending for sanction stage. Since this was the only possible way to resolve the issue, DGS Chennai took up the task of deleting the data(acknowledgement and Deficiency memo) and reprocessing the ARNs. This task has been completed and the ARNs are now made available in the dashboard of the officer under “pending for issuance of sanction order” stage. The officers shall now start processing the ARNs.
4. Missing ARNs pertaining to Excess Balance in Cash Ledger Refunds:
(i) It was noticed that the ARNs of refunds relating to “Excess balance in Cash Ledger refunds” were not received in the CBIC system since March, 2020. On examination, it was found that the ARNs were failing to get processed in the system due to missing certain mandatory attribute. When this was taken up with GSTN, it came to light that the changes made by GSTN to fix the issue related to auto acknowledgement of refund ARNs pertaining to Excess Balance in Cash Ledger refunds , led to certain mandatory attributes not being shared with the CBIC System, due to which the ARNs were failing. This change has been done by GSTN during first week of March and as such, the ARNs filed after that were failing in the CBIC System.
(ii) During the discussion with GSTN on 06.04.2020, an approach to resolve this issue and fetch the failed ARNs was arrived. Accordingly, this task was taken up by us and completed successfully and deployed yesterday i.e 16.04.2020. As a result, around 2400 refund ARNs filed during the past one month pertaining to pan India Jurisdiction, which were failing have been successfully processed and pushed to the dashboard of the officer. The officers shall now start processing these ARNs.
5. It is requested to share this advisory with all the officers processing refunds in your jurisdiction for necessary action. Any difficulty in processing the same may please reported to helpdesk by raising tickets with helpdesk@icegate.gov.in.
6. The other issues mentioned in Para 1 above are being pursued with GSTN for early resolution.
-Sd-
(S. Thirunavukkarasu)
Additional Director General
Copy submitted to:
1. The Pr Director General, Directorate of Systems and Data Management, New Delhi.
2. Pr Chief Commissioners/ chief commissioners of GST
3. Principal Commissioner and Commissioner Policy wing. CBIC
