GST Refund - Filing of GST Refund for Multiple Tax Period

Nobody wants to pay tax more than the amount for which he is liable to pay and if an individual pays knowingly or unknowingly then he seeks for refund of the same.

In case of GST as we have to file and pay tax on a monthly basis and in a similar way we have to claim refund individually/ separately for the month for which tax has been paid. But from now as per the clarification of Government dated 23rd August, 2018, taxpayer can now avail refund for multiple tax periods in one go.

APPLICABILITY

The applicable grounds for refund are:

• In case of Exports of Goods & Services – Without Payment of IGST i.e. if taxpayer have taken LUT
• Deemed Exports - Supplies made to SEZ Unit/SEZ Developer – Without payment of tax.

RESTRICTIONS

There are following restrictions for multiple tax period application:

• Multiple tax period selection should be within financial year

For eg- If a taxpayer is eligible for credit for the period Feburary’18 to July’18, then for this he needs to file two separate applications as the above mentioned period falls in two separate financial year i,e.,  Feb’18 to Mar’18 falls in FY 2017 to 2018 and Apr’18 to Jul’18  falls in FY 2018 to 2019.

• Filing of application should be in a chronological order for tax periods and in case refund application is not to be filed for any tax period, a declaration of ‘No refund application is to be provided’.

For eg- Apr’18 to Jun’18 refund application cannot be filed till application or No refund application declaration is filed for any tax period prior to Apr’18.

POINTS TO EMPHASIS WHILE CLAIMING REFUND

• GST Refund can be claimed by using refund application Form GST-RFD-01A & selecting a particular tax period.
• Taxpayer needs to upload invoice details mandatorily in the statement template available in refund application.
• The refund statement uploaded will be validated by the GST system from the invoice data provided at the time of filing of return for the period for which refund is claimed. And after this validation the taxpayer would be able to file refund application.
• Further invoice details for various periods are to be provided in a single statement instead of multiple statements for different periods separately.
• Additional supporting documents if required can be uploaded with a single refund application in pdf format of maximum size 5 MB (maximum 4 documents allowed).
• After complete filing, Manual filing of  GST-RFD-01A along with the statement and documents uploaded needs to send to tax officer for review and after that processing of refund will be initiated.   

CONSEQUENCES

Invoice details cannot be amend by taxpayer after claiming refund.

Once multiple tax periods refund application is filed, taxpayer would not be able to claim refund for that invoice again in some other refund application as those invoice for which refund has been claimed in one application shall be locked by the system.

Hope the article is useful for you and still if you have any doubts or need clarification then feel free to reach us at info@hubco.in or post your query here.