Exporters claiming benefits under the government’s RoDTEP (Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products) scheme will have to file annual RoDTEP return (ARR), the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in a public notice on Wednesday. The requirement to file the annual return is initially for exporters whose total RoDTEP claim exceeds Rs 1 crore in a financial year across all 8-digit HS Codes.
Exporters would be required to file the ARR for a particular financial year on the DGFT portal by March 31 of the following financial year, that is, RODTEP claims information for FY24 will be required to be filed by March 31, 2025, DGFT said.
The annual return filing will help the government “assess the nature of inputs used in export production and the amount of actual taxes and duties incurred,” the notice said.
Launched in 2021, the RoDTEP scheme enables exporters for rebate of all central, state, and local duties or taxes or levies on the goods exported which weren’t refunded under any other scheme. The scheme refunds the embedded tax or duties that were not refunded or reimbursed to exporters under MEIS such as VAT on fuel used in transport, mandi tax or duties, duty on electricity used in the production of goods, etc.
DGFT said exporters failing to file ARR will be denied RoDTEP’s benefits and also no further scroll out of RoDTEP claims for the shipping bills will be permitted at the customs port of export after the grace period of three months, that is, after June 30.
For delay in filing ARR up to June 30, a composition fee of Rs 10,000 will be levied on exporters. This means RoDTEP claims information for FY24 with composition fees can be filed within a grace period of three months, that is, June 30, 2025. Thereafter, a composition fee of Rs 20,000 will need to be paid after June 30.
“Subsequent to the payment of the composition fee, the RoDTEP scrolls will be resumed within 45 days, till an online API based message exchange is established between DGFT and Customs. The resumption of scroll out shall also cover the Shipping Bills that were not scrolled out earlier on account of non-compliance of ARR,” DGFT said.
Exporters will also be required to maintain claims’ physical or digital records for five years.
Importantly, the government in September this year had extended the RoDTEP scheme for a year till September 30, 2025, for exports made from domestic tariff area (DTA) units. The scheme was earlier valid till September 30, 2024. Moreover, the rates under the scheme were also revised from the earlier range of 0.5 per cent – 4.3 per cent to 0.3 per cent – 3.9 per cent, with effect from October 10 this year.