No hold-up of Refunds/Drawback - CBEC
ON 10.03.2014, several newspapers carried reports that duty refunds touching Rs 19,000 crore is likely to further hamper the chances of improvement in exports from India, according to Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO). Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President Rafeeque Ahmed regretted that despite repeated requests, the customs authorities have failed to clear the claims.
"They (revenue department) appear to be more concerned about meeting their revenue targets. Since October last year, the claims are pending and it has reached about Rs 19,000 crore and soon it will touch Rs 25,000 crore by end of the fiscal," Ahmed told PTI.
He said liquidity is a big issue for exports and pending claims of refund of service tax (Rs 3,000 crore), duty drawback (about Rs 10,000 crore), excise rebate (Rs 6,000 crore) and VAT are affecting exports.
"The pending claims are highest at JawaharLal Nehru sea port (Rs 3,059 crore) and Chennai sea port (Rs 1,280 crore)," he said .
The CBEC was quick to react. In a Press Release, the CBEC yesterday clarified:
The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has denied the report that the Customs, Excise Duty and Service Tax refunds/drawbacks are being held-up by the Department. This was mentioned in a certain section of media attributing to a statement by President, Federation of India Export Organisations (FIEO) to the effect that Customs, Excise Duty and Service Tax refunds/drawbacks are being held-up by the Department.
This is not correct. The following statement will indicate that more amounts have been refunded in 2013-14 compared to the corresponding period in the previous year.