GST Dept issues Circular addressing issues related to Refund of Excess Balance in Cash Ledger

The Principal Additional Director General of System and Data Management of the Goods and Services Tax & Central Excise has issued a circular to Principal Commissioners of all GST Zones and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) addressing issues related to the Refund of Excess Balance in the Cash Ledger.

These issues include the following -

• System errors while issuing payment advice
• Validation issues from banks
• Already existing acknowledgement issue while filing ARN -125
• Missing acquirer reference numbers in relation to excess balance in cash ledger refunds
• Issues or failure in payment disbursement
• Duplication in acquirer reference numbers
• Missing ARNs filed by TDS registrants

These issues have led to an increase in the number of pending claims and during discussions held with the Goods and Services Tax Network, this issue was resolved.

Here is a detailed note on the circular that was issued.

The circular stated that the Online Refunds Module was implemented on September 26th, 2019 and refund claims filed by taxpayers on the common portal will be processed by field formations. It also stated that issues related to refund ARNs pertaining to Excess Balance in Electronic Cash Ledger have been resolved and as such tax officers can take necessary action on pending refund claims. Around 2400 refund ARNs filed during the past month pertaining to pan India jurisdiction were previously failing due to the above-stated issues have now been successfully processed and assigned to the dashboard of tax officers in charge who will start processing these ARNs.