- Through the Circular No.131/1/2020-GST dated 23rd January, 2020 Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has communicated that several cases of monetisation of credit fraudulently obtained or ineligible credit through refund of Integrated Goods & Service Tax (IGST) on exports of goods have been detected in past few months. On verification, several such exporters were found to be non-existent in a number of cases.
- In all these cases it has been found that the Input Tax Credit (ITC) was taken by the exporters on the basis of fake invoices and IGST on exports was paid using such ITC.
- To mitigate the risk, the Board has taken measures to apply stringent risk parameters-based checks driven by rigorous data analytics and Artificial Intelligence tools based on which certain exporters are taken up for further verification. The refund scrolls in such cases are kept in abeyance till the verification report in respect of such cases is received from the field formations. Further, the export consignments/shipments of concerned exporters are subjected to 100 % examination at the customs port.
- Exporters whose scrolls have been kept in abeyance for verification would be informed at the earliest possible either by the jurisdictional CGST or by Customs.
- To expedite the verification, the exporters on being informed in this regard or on their own volition should fill in information in the format attached as Annexure ‘A’ to the Circular and submit the same to their jurisdictional CGST authorities for verification by them.
Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be followed by exporters
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