In a move to reduce compliance burden and facilitate ease of doing business, the government has relaxed certain procedures under the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme that allows duty free capital goods imports subject to an export obligation.
Exporters have to export finished goods worth six times of the actual duty saved in value terms in six years.
As per the changes notified by the commerce and industry ministry, requests for export obligation extension should be made within six months of expiry instead of the earlier prescribed period of 90 days. However, applications made after six months and upto six years are subject to a late fee of Rs 10,000 per authorization.
The changes also include annual reporting of export obligation (EO) by June 30 every year instead of April 30 with specified information but any delay would be subject to a late fee of Rs 5,000.
“With a view to enhance ease of doing business and reduce complaince burden, certain provisions of chapter 5 related to the EPCG scheme of the Handbook of procedures (2015-20) are amended for EPCG authorisations issued under Foreign Trade Policy (2015-20),” the Directorate General of Foreign Trade said in a public notice.
Further, requests for block wise export obligation extension need to be made within six months of expiry but applications made after six months and upto six years are subject to a late fee of Rs 10,000 per authorization.
Applications made after six years will be subject to a fee of Rs 5,000 per year. Earlier, no specified time limit was prescribed leading to discretionary interpretations.
Further the facility to pay customs duty through scrips (MEIS/RoDTEP/RoSCTL) for default under EPCG has been withdrawn.
