In order to move towards ease of doing business the CBEC has issued a circular no 187/6/2015-Service Tax dated 10th November 2015 regarding speedy disbursal of pending refund to exporters of service under Rule 5 of Cenvat Credit Rules, 2004. Since, the Government has directed especially to speedy sanction of refund in case of exporters of services. This can be regarded as fast track sanction scheme of refund of accumulated CENVAT Credit to exporters of services. The primary objective of Government is to encourage and enable the concept of ease of doing business.
Applicability of the Scheme
1. This scheme will be applicable to all refund claims which are pending to the Exporters as on 31-3-2015 and have not been disposed of by way of a sanction order.
2. Refunds which had been finalized earlier by issuance of an adjudication order but have been remanded back to the original sanctioning authority will not be covered under this scheme since re-examination of such claims will have to be done strictly in terms of the remand order of the Commissioner (Appeals)/ CESTAT / High Court.
Document required to be submitted:
The following documents are required to be submitted :
1. Refund application in Form A
2. Copy of the relevant Shipping Bills or Bills of Export duly certified by the officer of customs to the effect that the goods have in fact been exported (in case of final products).
3. Copy of invoices issued by the input service providers.
4. Copy of invoices for services exported.
5. Certificate from the bank certifying realization of export proceeds (in case of export of output services).
6. Relevant extracts of the records maintained under the Central Excise Rules, cenvat credit rules or service tax rules, in original, evidencing taking of CENVAT credit, utilization of such credit in payment of excise duty or service tax and the balance unutilized credit during the given period.
7. Statement of input invoices showing details of payment of service tax and amount claimed.
8. The Table given as provided under the Notification 07/2010- CE(NT) dated 27.02.10, duly certified by a person authorized by the Board of Directors(in the case of a limited company) or the proprietor or any partner (in case of partnership firm) if the amount of refund claimed is less than Rs. 5 lakh, the Table shall also be certified by the Chartered Accountant who audits the annual accounts of the exporter for the purposes of Companies Act, 1956 or the Income Tax Act, 1961, as the case may be, if the amount of refund claimed is more than Rs. 5lakh.
9. Declaration certifying the correctness of the particulars given by the claimant.
Additional Documents to be filled along with above application :
In addition to the specified documents required to be filed along with the refund claim, the following are the additional documents need to be submitted:
1. A certificate from the statutory auditor in the case of companies, and from a Chartered Accountants in the case of assessees, who are not companies, in the format as given prescribed.
2. An undertaking from the claimant in the format as given.
Operation of the scheme
On receipt of the additional documents in respect of pending claims, the Jurisdictional Deputy/Assistant Commissioner will give a dated acknowledgement to the claimant. Thereafter, he will make a provisional payment of 80% of the amount claimed as refund, within 5 working days of the receipt of the documents. Further, the Board has prescribed other procedures as well for effective operation of the scheme.
Pursuant to provisional payment of the refund claim, the authorities shall undertake a detailed scrutiny of the claim in terms of relevant notifications.
If the refund is found to be inadmissible, the authorities will issue a show cause notice (SCN) for recovery of such excess amount paid. However, before issue of an SCN, an intimation will be sent to the claimant so as to enable him/her to avail the benefit of Section 73(3) of Chapter V of Finance Act 1994, seeking waiver of the issue of an SCN upon payment of the determined amount.
Conclusion:
This is welcome scheme issued by the CBEC and its expected to benefit many service providers, provided concerned authorities strictly adhered to it. This circular is applicable only to exporters of services. The Board should also issue similar circulars for manufacturers exporters also.
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