Govt plans FBT refund for exporters

KOLKATA: The Government is working on devising a mechanism for refund of service tax and fringe benefit tax to reduce the burden on exporters and make them more competitive.

"The department of revenue of ministry of finance is already working on a mechanism for refund of service tax.

Refund for fringe benefit tax may also be extended," Director General of Foreign Trade K T Chacko said on Thursday.

He said that government recognised that several taxes could not be refunded.

"Only, once Goods and Service Tax (GST) is implemented the exporting community would able to eliminate the tax burdens. But, till it is implemented we are trying to minimize the burden," Chacko said.

Meanwhile, DGFT was likely to notify the focus countries and products within the current month of April.

"We could have notified them. But, we are still trying to get more countries and goods," he added.

Latin America would be one of the focus countries. While exporting community urged the government to look at CIS and some Asian countries.

Exporters urged Chacko to offer some incentive for the sectors like tea and jute to boost the eastern India. Request was also made to provide transportation subsidy as it constitutes 14 per cent of the product cost, hurting the exporters.