GST refund of missed Bills, Goods and Services Tax - GST

[Bipin Parmar]

Dear Experts,

We applied for GST refund on export of services with payment of tax for the period May to Jun 2024. However, we missed to claim the refund for Jun-24. Bills. We cannot apply twice for the same month of the GST portal. There is no domestic supply. Any remedy available?

Thanks

Bipin

Posts / Replies

[YAGAY andSUN]

Yes, this is a common issue that exporters face while filing GST refund applications under the category "Export of Services with Payment of Tax" when one or more invoices are inadvertently left out in a refund claim.

Let’s break it down and look at possible remedies based on current (as of FY 2024-25) GST law and practices:

Situation:

• Refund applied for May to June 2024 period.
• June 2024 invoices were missed (i.e., not included in the filed application).
• The GST portal does not allow re-filing for the same period under the same refund category.
• No domestic supply.

Remedies Available:

Option 1: File a refund claim for July 2024 including the missed June 2024 invoices

This is the most practical and accepted workaround.

Even though the missed invoices are from June, you can include them in the next tax period’s (e.g., July 2024) refund application, as long as they haven't been claimed before and satisfy the conditions under Rule 89 of CGST Rules.

Conditions to follow:

• The invoices should not have been part of any earlier refund claim.
• Export proceeds (foreign inward remittance) should be realized within the prescribed time (usually 9 months from invoice date).
• You need to clearly declare the June invoices in Annexure and Statement 2 while filing July’s refund application.

Note: You can attach a covering letter or declaration stating that these invoices were missed inadvertently and are being included now.

Option 2: Withdrawal of the previous refund application (if not processed yet)

If your original refund application for May–June 2024 is still pending or under processing, you may try to:

• Withdraw the application (if portal permits),
• Refile a fresh refund application for May–June 2024, including the missing invoices.

However, this is only feasible before the refund is sanctioned. Once sanctioned or acknowledged, this option is closed.

Option 3: Approach Jurisdictional GST Officer

If portal options are blocked and it's critical, you can:

• Write to your jurisdictional GST refund officer,
• Request manual intervention or allow claim of missed invoices in the next period,
• Officers are often aware of such practical issues and may guide or give a written direction to include it in the next month's claim.

Best Practice Tip:

Maintain a register of export invoices matched with refund application IDs and periods to avoid missing entries. Also, add a standard review step before final submission.

[Shilpi Jain]

Write to the department regarding this and meet the officer to explain the situation.

Human error coupled with no facility to rectify in the portal cannot lead to denial of benefits given under the law.

If the amount is huge take professional help regarding how to deal in case the officer does not accept to open portal for refund.

[Shilpi Jain]

If amount is not huge or you do not want to take the hazzel of approaching department, amend  the service invoices to w/o payment of tax and adjust the taxes already paid in subsequent returns.