Circular No.ES/41/2020-21 14th April, 2020
To: Members of the Council
Sub: Special Refund and Drawback Disposal Drive – Implementation of decision to expedite pending refund and drawback claims
Dear Member,
CBIC has issued Instruction No. 3/2020- Customs dated 9th April, 2020 urging all officers concerned to make special efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic by liquidating the pending refund and drawback claims till 30.04.2020 and make the Special Drive a grand success.
As you are aware, CBIC has taken various measures to mitigate the hardship caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to the trade and industry and other stakeholders. These measures include 24×7 Customs functioning, single window helpdesk on the CBIC website, waiver of late fee for delays in filing Bills of Entry, temporarily dispensing with submission of bonds, wherever required, etc.
Continuing with these trade facilitation measures, CBIC has now decided to expeditiously process all pending Customs refund and drawback claims in order to provide immediate relief to the business entities, especially MSMEs, in these difficult times. This decision has been announced vide Press Note dated 8th April, 2020 issued by the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance.
In this regard, CBIC has instructed that starting with immediate effect there shall be a “Special Refund and Drawback Disposal Drive” with the objective of priority processing and disposal of all pending refund and drawback claims.. This Special Drive shall be in place till 30th April, 2020. It is expected that during this period all refund and drawback claims that are pending as on 7th April, 2020 shall be disposed. The Principal Chief Commissioners/ Chief Commissioners shall monitor the performance on this front closely on a daily basis and, wherever required, suitably guide the officers concerned to maximize the disposal.
With regard to the above, CBIC has instructed the concerned officers to make a note of the following-
Though the decision to process pending refund claims has been taken with a view to provide immediate relief to the taxpayers, due diligence is to be done before granting the refunds and All the relevant legal provisions, notifications, circulars and instructions must be followed while processing these claims.
For facilitation of exporters, all communication shall be done over email, wherever email id of the applicant is available.
All deficiency memos to be reviewed and to consider the refund / drawback on merit
Members may kindly make a note of the above.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
S.BALARAJU
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
