The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has come up with a ‘Special GST Refund Disposal Drive’ from May 15-31 to provide immediate relief to business entities, especially MSMEs, who are facing liquidity issues in these difficult pandemic times.

All Central Tax formations have been directed to launch this special drive for processing of all pending GST refund claims on priority, an official release said.

It is expected that during this special drive, all GST refund claims, lending as on May 14 would be disposed of by May 31, the release added.

Also, the Principal Chief Commissioners/ Chief Commissioners of CGST Zones have been asked to monitor the performance on this front closely on a daily basis and, wherever required, suitably guide the officers concerned to maximize the disposal.

Further, it is important to have due coordination for this Special Drive with the major trade and industry associations (especially those that cater to exporters & MSMEs) for the assistance and handholding of taxpayers, including for submission of required documents/ reply by the taxpayers (if a claim is pending for want of a required document/ reply to notice, etc), the release added.

Covid-related relief

CBIC has been taking measures — both during the first wave as well as the ongoing second Covid-19 wave — to provide various Covid-related relief measures/relaxations to taxpayers.

These include reduction/ waiver of late fee and interest for late filing of returns; extending due dates for filing of some of the returns/ statements; extending timelines for various compliances for both taxpayers as well as tax officers; EVC facility for filing GSTR 3B and GSTR 1 to companies, instead of DSC; and providing VPN facility to tax officers to allow them to perform their duties from home during lockdown, etc.

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