New Delhi, July 20 (KNN) After receiving several representations from the micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) exporters, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has issued two Circulars to expedite the refund for exporters as an extension of the special “Refund Fortnight” drive, especially for exporters in the MSME domain.

CBIC has created Help Desks’ at the offices of FIEO and AEPC for expeditious IGST refunds for MSME exporters. The Help desks, to be set up till August 1, 2018 at these two places, would assist in resolution of IGST refund claims for MSME exporters as part of on-going ‘Refund Fortnight.

MSMEs had made several representations to CBIC stating they are unable to approach Customs port of exports due to factors like distance, lack of information/knowledge etc. and accordingly, their refunds have been held up.

According to the circular, these Help Desks would be located at 10 cities at FIEO offices and would function till August 1, 2018.

CBIC is currently running the third tranche of its special fortnight drive from July 16 to 30 to fast track clearance of pending GST refunds of exporters.

CBIC said the help desks would be managed by officers of Customs, nominated by jurisdictional Customs zone and the officers deputed at Help Desks would use data provided by Directorate of Systems regarding status of pending IGST refund claim. The officers would inform the exporters about specific errors and explain them about the documentation requirement, if any. The officers would also guide the MSME exporters to resolve the errors.

Once the details are provided by exporters, the same will be transmitted by ICEGATE e-mail to nodal officers at port of export and subsequently, the Customs officers at port of export will process the refund claim after all necessary details/documents have been received. Thus, the exporter is not required to visit any port of export, said the CBIC Circular.

FIEO has offices in 10 cities – Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ludhiana and Mumbai while AEPC’s office is in Tirupur. (KNN Bureau)