Circular No. 125/44/2019 - GST
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CBEC-20/16/04/18-GST
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Department of Revenue
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs
GST Policy Wing
****
New Delhi, Dated the 18th November, 2019
To,
The
Principal
Chief
Commissioners/Chief
Commissioners/Principal
Commissioners/
Commissioners of Central Tax (All) / The Principal Director Generals/ Director Generals (All)
The Principal Chief Controller of Accounts (CBIC)
Madam/Sir,
Subject: Fully electronic refund process through FORM GST RFD-01 and single
disbursement – regarding
After roll out of GST w.e.f. 01.07.2017, on account of the unavailability of electronic
refund module on the common portal, a temporary mechanism had to be devised and implemented
wherein applicants were required to file the refund application in FORM GST RFD-01A on the
common portal, take a print out of the same and submit it physically to the jurisdictional tax office
along with all supporting documents. Further processing of these refund applications, i.e. issuance
of acknowledgement of the refund application, issuance of deficiency memo, passing of
provisional/final order, payment advice etc. was also being done manually. In order to make the
process of submission of the refund application electronic, Circular No. 79/53/2018-GST dated
31.12.2018 was issued wherein it was specified that the refund application in FORM GST RFD-
01A, along with all supporting documents, shall be submitted electronically. However, various
post submission stages of processing of the refund application continued to be manual.
2.
The necessary capabilities for making the refund procedure fully electronic, in which all
steps of submission and processing shall be undertaken electronically, have been deployed on the
common portal with effect from 26.09.2019. Accordingly, the Circulars issued earlier laying down
the guidelines for manual submission and processing of refund claims need to be suitably modified
and a fresh set of guidelines needs to be issued for electronic submission and processing of refund
claims. With this objective and in order to ensure uniformity in the implementation of the
provisions of law across field formations, the Board, in exercise of its powers conferred by section
168 (1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (hereinafter referred to as “CGST Act”),
hereby lays down the procedure for electronic submission and processing of refund applications
in supersession of earlier Circulars viz. Circular No. 17/17/2017-GST dated 15.11.2017,
24/24/2017-GST dated 21.12.2017, 37/11/2018-GST dated 15.03.2018, 45/19/2018-GST dated
30.05.2018 (including corrigendum dated 18.07.2019), 59/33/2018-GST dated 04.09.2018,
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70/44/2018-GST dated 26.10.2018, 79/53/2018-GST dated 31.12.2018 and 94/13/2019-GST
dated 28.03.2019. However, the provisions of the said Circulars shall continue to apply for all
refund applications filed on the common portal before 26.09.2019 and the said applications shall
continue to be processed manually as prior to deployment of new system.
Filing of refund applications in FORM GST RFD-01
3.
With effect from 26.09.2019, the applications for the following types of refunds shall be
filed in FORM GST RFD 01 on the common portal and the same shall be processed electronically:
a. Refund of unutilized input tax credit (ITC) on account of exports without payment of
tax;
b. Refund of tax paid on export of services with payment of tax;
c. Refund of unutilized ITC on account of supplies made to SEZ Unit/SEZ Developer
without payment of tax;
d. Refund of tax paid on supplies made to SEZ Unit/SEZ Developer with payment of tax;
e. Refund of unutilized ITC on account of accumulation due to inverted tax structure;
f. Refund to supplier of tax paid on deemed export supplies;
g. Refund to recipient of tax paid on deemed export supplies;
h. Refund of excess balance in the electronic cash ledger;
i. Refund of excess payment of tax;
j. Refund of tax paid on intra-State supply which is subsequently held to be inter-State
supply and vice versa;
k. Refund on account of assessment/provisional assessment/appeal/any other order;
l. Refund on account of “any other” ground or reason.
4.
The following modalities shall be followed for all refund applications filed in FORM GST
RFD-01 on the common portal with effect from 26.09.2019:
a. FORM GST RFD-01 shall be filled on the common portal by an applicant seeking
refund under any of the categories mentioned above. This shall entail filing of
statements/declarations/undertakings which are part of FORM GST RFD-01 itself,
and also uploading of other documents/invoices which shall be required to be provided
by the applicant for processing of the refund claim. A comprehensive list of such
documents is provided at Annexure-A and it is clarified that no other document needs
to be provided by the applicant at the stage of filing of the refund application. The
facility of uploading these other documents/invoices shall be available on the common
portal where four documents, each of maximum 5MB, may be uploaded along with
the refund application. Neither the refund application in FORM GST RFD-01 nor any
of the supporting documents shall be required to be physically submitted to the office
of the jurisdictional proper officer.
b. The Application Reference Number (ARN) will be generated only after the applicant
has completed the process of filing the refund application in FORM GST RFD-01,
and has completed uploading of all the supporting documents/ undertaking/
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statements/invoices and, where required, the amount has been debited from the
electronic credit/cash ledger.
c. As soon as the ARN is generated, the refund application along with all the supporting
documents shall be transferred electronically to the jurisdictional proper officer who
shall be able to view it on the system. The application shall be deemed to have been
filed under sub-rule (2) of rule 90 of the CGST Rules on the date of generation of the
said ARN and the time limit of 15 days to issue an acknowledgement or a deficiency
memo, as the case may be, shall be counted from the said date. This will obviate the
need for an applicant to visit the jurisdictional tax office for the submission of the
refund application and /or any of the supporting documents. Accordingly, the
acknowledgement for the complete application (FORM GST RFD-02) or deficiency
memo (FORM GST RFD-03), as the case may be, would be issued electronically by
the jurisdictional tax officer based on the documents so received from the common
portal.
d. If a refund application is electronically transmitted to the wrong jurisdictional officer,
he/she shall reassign it to the correct jurisdictional officer electronically as soon as
possible, but not later than three working days, from the date of generation of the ARN.
Deficiency memos shall not be issued in such cases merely on the ground that the
applications were received electronically in the wrong jurisdiction.
e. It may be noted that the facility to reassign such refund applications is already available
with the Commissioner or the officer(s) authorized by him.
5.
The refund application in FORM GST RFD-01 filed by all taxpayers, who have already
been assigned to the Centre or the State tax authorities, shall be automatically forwarded by the
common portal to the concerned authority. At the same time, there might be some migrated
taxpayers, who have remained unassigned so far. The refund application in FORM GST RFD-01
filed by such unassigned taxpayers shall be forwarded, for processing, by the common portal to
the jurisdictional proper officer of the tax authority from which the taxpayer has originally
migrated. Such officers will continue to process these applications up to the stage of issuance of
final order in FORM GST RFD-06 and the related payment order in FORM GST RFD-05 even
if the applicant is assigned to the counterpart tax authority while the refund claim is under
processing. However, if such an applicant gets assigned to one of the tax authorities after
generation of the ARN and a deficiency memo gets issued for the refund application submitted by
him, then the re-submitted refund application, after correction of deficiencies, shall be treated as a
fresh refund application and shall be forwarded to the jurisdictional proper officer of the tax
authority to which the taxpayer has now been assigned, irrespective of which authority handled
the initial refund claim and issued the deficiency memo.
6.
Any refund claim for a tax period may be filed only after furnishing all the returns in
FORM GSTR-1 and FORM GSTR-3B which were due to be furnished on or before the date on
which the refund application is being filed. However, in case of a claim for refund filed by a
