Submitting electronic refund claims: commercial exporters urged to use ERS carefully

The commercial exporters have to be very careful while submitting declarations (electronic refund claim) during filing of sales tax refund application under the Expeditious Refund System (ERS) to avoid issues of short-shipment and short-payment of taxes.
Sources told Business Recorder here Wednesday that so far 15,000 cheques of sales tax refunds have been issued by the Centralised Sales Tax Refund Office (CSTRO) at the FBR involving an amount of Rs 13 billion. From December 2010 onwards, the FBR has made it mandatory for the commercial exporters to electronically file their refund claims under the ERS.
However, if the information has been submitted accurately by commercial exporters, they would be able to obtain refund within a period of seven days. It is necessary that the exporters should be very careful in entering the data on the front page of declaration ie electronic refund claim. If the information has been properly submitted, the exporters can obtain sales tax refund within 7 days of filing of returns.
Sources further stated that the commercial exporters must be very careful while filing the column of short-shipment under the description of declaration. There should be no short shipment and export GD objection by customs is involved in any of the exports mentioned in the refund claim. The cases of the short shipment would not be entertained under the ERS. Secondly, there should be no short payment against any of the returns filed by the commercial exporters. The cases of short payment would also not be entertained under the ERS. Therefore, commercial exporters must remove objections pertaining to short payment and short shipment for processing of their claims under the ERS.
The new system has in-built mechanism to promptly respond to the wrong declarations made by the commercial exporters. The discrepancies in the electronically filed returns would be automatically responded by the system itself. Taking into account observations of the system, the exporters should promptly rectify their errors for obtaining refunds within seven days period.
Sources said that the system has the capacity to issue electronic intimations to the registered persons. If an electronic refund claim (ERC) qualifies for expeditious payment of refund, then the registered person shall be intimated by e-mail. If an ERC does not qualify for expeditious payment of refund, then the registered person shall be intimated by e-mail as prescribed in the relevant sales tax general order. If an ERC qualifies for expeditious payment of refund, then the respective tax office shall be advised by e-mail and a system-approved Refund Payment Order (RPO) shall be placed in the Inbox of the treasury officer of the RTO for issuance of cheque to the registered person. Simultaneously the refund claim shall be forwarded electronically to the concerned audit division of tax office for post refund audit, sources added.