Speed Post News Network
New Delhi : Sending a strong positive signal to the exporting community, the GST Council at its 26thmeeting held here on March 10, 2018, decided to extend the available tax exemptions on imported goods for a further 6 months beyond March 31, 2018.
The exporters presently availing various export promotion schemes can now continue to avail such exemptions on their imports upto October 1, 2018, by which time an e-Wallet scheme is expected to be in place to continue the benefits in future, according to a PIB release.
In a related development which would benefit the exporters, the Council reviewed the progress in grant of refunds in exports on both IGST and Input Tax Credit. The Council appreciated that the pace of grant of IGST refund has picked up. Thereafter, the Council directed GSTN to expeditiously forward the balance refund claims to the Customs/Central GST/State GST authorities, as the case may be, for their immediate sanction and disbursal.
It may be recalled that in its meeting held on October 6, 2017, the Council had noted that exporters are experiencing difficulties of cash blockage on account of having to pay upfront GST / IGST on the inputs, raw materials etc. / finished goods imported / procured for purposes of exports. An interim solution was found by re-introducing the pre-GST tax exemptions on such imports. Additionally, for merchant exporters a special scheme of payment of GST @ 0.1% on their procured goods was introduced. All these avenues were made available upto March 31, 2018.
The permanent solution agreed to by the Council was to introduce an e-Wallet scheme w.e.f. from April 1, 2018. The e-Wallet scheme is basically the creation of electronic e-Wallets, which would be credited with notional or virtual currency by the DGFT. This notional / virtual currency would be used by the exporters to make the payment of GST / IGST on the goods imported / procured by them so their funds are not blocked.