The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has taken precautionary measures to ensure issuance of sales tax refund to the extent of genuine admissible limit and devised a methodology to control refund claims filed on the basis of fake sales tax invoices.
In this connection, the CBR on Thursday communicated a new strategy to the collectors of sales tax for issuance of refund.
According to the new procedure, all refund cases involving exports, refund payments would be made only to the extent of actual exports regardless whether the refund claim has been processed through STREAMS or otherwise. This will be applicable in processing of refund cases filed in future.
In cases, where refund payments had already been made on un-consumed/un-exported stocks, the collectorates would immediately undertake and complete reconciliation of refund payments with the exports made by the claimants. Where stocks have yet not been consumed/exported, the amounts of outstanding payable refunds, if any, in case of such claimants, would be apportioned and reduced to the extent of the amount of refund already paid on such un-consumed/un-exported stocks.
The CBR said that no refund should be paid without cross matching of invoices. Such cross matching would be done manually in cases where computer-based matching is not available due to any reason.
The CBR has also directed the collectors to intimate as to whether any precautionary measures have been taken by the "Dedicated Cells" to ensure that refund payments do not exceed the genuine admissible limits. Board may also be apprised of all such measures so taken and report the cases where any excess claim amount has been noticed.