All tax refunds under India's new export scheme seem tough

12 Sep '19

2 min read

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As India works on an ‘export package’, it may not be possible to shift all exports to the Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) scheme because of budget constraints. The government, instead, wants the commerce department to identify priority sectors that need more support. RoSCTL will replace the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).

The new scheme, put together by the commerce department after the United States dragged India’s export promotion programmes to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is expected to be taken up by the cabinet soon, according to a report in a top English-language newspaper.

On an average, the government has estimated that the incidence of central and state levies added up to 4-5 per cent, which needed to be refunded. With merchandise exports estimated at over $330 billion, refund of levies would add up to over $16 billion or more than ₹1.1 lakh crore.

For the current fiscal, the government has budgeted for a revenue impact of ₹65,720 crore on account of all export-promotion schemes. Of this, MEIS is estimated to have an impact of ₹36,615 crore. Already, some of the goods and service tax (GST) is refunded to exporters.

The government recently released ₹6,000 crore for the textiles industry, while insisting that some of the other sops for exporters should be dropped. While the rebate scheme for all exporters is being finalised, the government is also working on ways to improve access to loans for which commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has held several round of deliberations.

The rebate scheme reportedly is almost ready and is expected to be announced shortly. (DS)

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