A Single Bench of the Madras High Court has recently held that dealers cannot be compelled to carry forward Input Tax Credit ( ITC )from extant regime to the Goods and Services Tax ( GST ) Regime if he/she chooses to avail refund instead.
Amirta Dinakaran, on behalf of the revenue submitted that the dealer has taken the position that it had mistakenly reversed the Input Tax Credit in June 2017 and that has led to the issue of impugned notice.
The Court observed that, “the dealer has two options i.e., refund or carrying forward the ITC to GST regime, the dealer in the case on hand, has opted for the former not the latter. The common portal giving dealers the option for choosing former or latter also is now active till 2024. In such circumstances, the dealer cannot be compelled to opt for one of the two i.e., refund or carrying forward the ITC to GST regime. It is after all an option given to the dealer.”
However, the single bench of Justice M Sundar observed that “ In the case on hand, the case of writ petitioner dealer stands buttressed by the provisional refund order made by the same sole respondent and issue of what is referred to as ‘FORM-P’ clearly quantified the entitlement of writ petitioner at Rs.13,36,741/-.”
It was thus observed by the Madras High Court that refund has already been processed by Revenue and a provisional refund order also has been passed besides issue of FORM – P.
The respondent was also directed to ensure that the refund in provisional refund order and FORM-P annexed to the same (to be noted Rs.13,36,741/- INR {Rs.Thirteen Lakhs Thirty Six Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty One Only}) is made available to the writ petitioner as expeditiously as possible.
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