Forms for application of refund under GST

Filing of returns and claiming of refund is going to be a completely online process under GST. We will cover the forms to be filed for claiming of refund, acknowledgement, and examination under GST.

Latest Update

05th July 2022
Taxpayers can exclude the COVID pandemic period (1st March 2020 and 28th February 2022) while calculating the time limit for filing GST refund applications under Sections 54 or 55 of the CGST Act.

1st February 2022
Budget 2022 update-
1. Section 54 is amended to provide that refund claim of any balance in the electronic cash ledger can be made in a particular form and manner prescribed.
2. The time limit to claim refund by UN agencies is now two years from last day of quarter when supply was received instead of six months.
3. The restriction to refund taxpayers for tax defaults, that earlier applied to unutilised ITC refund, is now extended to other types of refunds.
4. The relevant date to file refund claim application for supplies to SEZ is clarified in new sub-clause (ba) of clause (2) of the explanation.

1st May 2021
Where the time limit to pass orders for rejecting any refund claim fully or partly falls between 15th April 2021 and 30th May 2021, it is extended. The extended time limit shall be later of two dates:
(1) 15 days after reply to notice OR
(2) 31st May 2021

Form GST RFD-01

Any person claiming the refund of the tax, interest, penalty, fees paid by him has to file Form GST RFD-01 electronically through the common portal either directly or through a Facilitation Centre notified by the Commissioner except the following:

1. Any specialized agency of the united nation organization
2. Multilateral Financial Institution
3. An organization under the United Nation (Privileges and Immunities) Act
4. Embassy of foreign countries
5. any other person or class of persons as may be specified in this behalf by the Indian Government.

Refund for the balance available in the electronic cash ledger may also be made through Form GSTR-3B, Form GSTR-4, and Form GSTR-7 as applicable. In the case of goods exported, the refund claim can only be filed after the export manifest or export report is provided to the proper officer by the person in charge of the conveyance of goods.

Before filing refund application, the invoice details and IGST amount has to be reported in Table 6A of GSTR-1 and Table 3.1(b) of GSTR-3B respectively.

In the case of the goods supplied to a special economic zone (SEZ) or an SEZ developer, then the refund application shall be filed by the supplier of goods after the goods are admitted in full in the SEZ for authorised operations.

Authorised operations are endorsed by the specified officer of the SEZ. An applicant is entitled to a refund of the amount available after adjusting the tax payable from the advance tax deposited by him at the time of registration.

The applicant shall claim such refund at the time of filing the last return or after the last return is filed.

For example – Amar deposited an advance tax of Rs 1,00,000 at the time of registration. The total tax liability of Amar was for Rs 90,000. Amar is required to file the last return by 31 December 2018. Amar can claim the refund of Rs 10,000 while filing the return on 31 December 2018 or after the said return is filed.

Exception – In cases where the supply of goods/services is regarded as ‘Deemed Export’, then a refund for the tax paid on such goods/services has to be claimed by the recipient of such goods/services.

The applications for the following types of refunds can be filed in Form GST RFD-01 on the GST common portal along with the supporting documents and the same shall be processed electronically.

Sl No.	Type of refund	Supporting documents to be uploaded
1	Refund of unutilised ITC on account of exports of goods or services without payment of tax (A valid LUT/Bond in Form RFD-11 must have been filed)	(i) Copy of GSTR-2A of the relevant period (ii) Statement of invoices (Annexure-B*) (iii) Self-certified copies of invoices which are not found in GSTR-2A but entered in Annexure-B (iv) BRC/FIRC in case of export of services and shipping bill in case of goods^ (*As per the attached format below) (^Applicable only in case of exports from ports which does not have Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) facility)
2	Refund of tax paid on export of services made with payment of tax	(i) Copy of GSTR-2A of the relevant period (ii) Statement of invoices (Annexure-B) (iii) Self-certified copies of invoices which are not found in GSTR-2A but entered in Annexure-B (iv) BRC/FIRC/any other document indicating the receipt of sale proceeds of services (v) Self-declaration that the applicant has not been prosecuted for five years from the relevant period where tax evaded is more than Rs 2.5 crores
3	Refund of unutilised ITC on account of supplies made to SEZ units/developer without payment of tax	(i) Copy of GSTR-2A of the relevant period (ii) Statement of invoices (Annexure-B) (iii) Self-certified copies of invoices which are not found in GSTR-2A but entered in Annexure-B (iv) Endorsement(s) from the specified officer of the SEZ regarding receipt of goods/services for authorised operations
4	Refund of tax paid on supplies made to SEZ units/developer with payment of tax	(i) Self-certified copies of invoices which are not found in GSTR-2A but entered in Annexure-B (ii) Endorsement(s) from the specified officer of the SEZ regarding receipt of goods/services for authorised operations (iii) Self-declaration that the applicant has not been prosecuted for five years from the relevant period where tax evaded is more than Rs 2.5 crores
5	Refund of ITC unutilised on account of accumulation due to inverted tax structure	(i) Copy of GSTR-2A of the relevant period (ii) Statement of invoices (Annexure-B) (iii) Self-certified copies of invoices which are not found in GSTR-2A but entered in Annexure-B
6	Refund to the supplier of tax paid on deemed export (DE) supplies	(i) Documents required under Notification No. 49/2017-Central Tax dated 18.10.2017 (ii) Documents required as per Circular No. 14/14/2017-GST dated 06.11.2017 To read more about it, please check out this  article
7	Refund to the recipient of tax paid on deemed export supplies	(i) Documents required as per Circular No. 14/14/2017-GST dated 06.11.2017 To read more about it, please check out this  article
8	Refund of excess balance in the electronic cash ledger	–Not Applicable–
9	Refund of excess payment of tax	–Not Applicable–
10	Refund of tax paid on an intra-state supply which is subsequently held to be an inter-state supply and vice versa	–Not Applicable–
11	Refund on account of assessment/provisional assessment/appeal/any other order	(i) Reference number of the order and a copy of the Assessment/Provisional Assessment/Appeal/Any Other Order (ii) Reference number/proof of payment of pre-deposit made earlier for which refund is being claimed
12	Refund on account of any other ground or reason	(i) Documents in support of the claim

Annexure-B

Through Circular No. 125/44/2019 – GST, it is clarified that no other document needs to be provided by the applicant at the stage of filing of the refund application.

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
• Uploaded all the supporting documents / undertaking / statements / invoices
• The amount has been debited from the electronic credit/cash ledger if required

Form GST RFD-02

The application in Form GST RFD-01 shall be deemed to be filed on the date of generation of the ARN. When the ARN is generated, the refund application along with all the supporting documents shall be transferred electronically to the jurisdictional proper officer.

The proper officer has to review and scrutinise the refund application. If the application is complete as per CGST Rules, an acknowledgement in Form GST RFD-02 should be issued within 15 days of the date of claiming the refund.

Once an acknowledgement in Form RFD-02 has been issued about a refund application, deficiency memo in Form RFD-03 cannot be issued for the said application.

Form GST RFD-03

Once the proper officer has reviewed the application and if any discrepancies are found, he has to issue deficiency memo to the applicant in the Form GST RFD-03 within 15 days of refund application.
This Form GST RFD-03 has to be issued electronically through the common portal. Once the deficiency memo has been issued, any amount of input tax credit/cash debited from electronic credit/cash ledger would be re-credited automatically.

It may be noted that the re-credit would take place automatically and no order in Form GST PMT-03 is required to be issued. After a deficiency memo has been issued, the refund application would not be further processed and a new application would have to be filed. The applicant is required to rectify the deficiencies highlighted in deficiency memo and file a new refund application electronically in Form GST RFD-01 again for the same period.

The revised application would have a new and distinct ARN. The proper officer can not serve another deficiency memo concerning the application for the same period unless the deficiencies pointed out in the original deficiency memo remain unrectified.

It is to be noted that a refund application filed after correction of deficiency is treated as a new refund application, hence such a rectified refund application also have to be submitted within two years of the relevant date.
There are other forms for the refund which we will cover in the upcoming article. The process of refund under GST will be hassle-free as it is an entirely electronic process.