Drawback Rules Amended - An Eight Year Old Aberration Rectified
GOVERNMENT has amended the Customs, Central Excise Duties and Service Tax Drawback Rules, 1995.
As per Section 75A(1) of the Customs Act, “Where any drawback payable to a claimant under section 74 or section 75 is not paid within a period of one month from the date of filing a claim for payment of such drawback, there shall be paid to that claimant in addition to the amount of drawback, interest at the rate fixed under section 27A from the date after the expiry of the said period of one month till the date of payment of such drawback.”
This one month was actually two months earlier. It was changed to one month with effect from 14.05.2003.
Now let's cut back to the Drawback Rules.
Rule 13(4) of the Drawback Rules states, “For computing the period of two months prescribed under section 75A for payment of drawback to the claimant, the time taken in testing of the export goods, not more than one month, shall be excluded.”
As mentioned above, Section 75A does not prescribe two months, but only one month (as amended in 2003). But when they amended the Customs Act in 2003, they forgot to amend the Drawback Rules and this aberration continued merrily for the last eight years. This has been corrected now. DDT Congratulates the Board.
Drawback on Cotton Yarn: Drawback was not allowed earlier on Cotton Yarn falling under heading 5205, 5206 and 5207. Now this restriction is removed.
Notification No. , Dated : September 22, 2011