What is negative statement of export bills?

Where exports made under the Duty Drawback Scheme and such bill remain outstanding beyond the prescribed time limit, the exporter needs to submit a negative statement/certificate to the nodal officer of Department of Excise and Customs on a 6 monthly basis. The negative statement /certificate will be issued either by the authorized dealer (AD) bank(s)  or chartered accountant (in his capacity as a statutory auditor of the exporter’s account)  providing details  of shipment which remain outstanding beyond the prescribed time limit under FEMA 1999 including the extended time,  if any, allowed  by the authorized dealer/RBI.

In the cases of export is routed through different authorized dealers (ADs) or different ports, the certificates furnished by the exporter, shall be AD wise for each port.  In order to put the exporters on notice at the time of export itself, an endorsement on the exporter’s copy of shipping bill would be made specifying the due date for realization of export proceeds.

The department of excise and customs has developed software to monitor the exports made under the Drawback Scheme known as BRC (Bank Realization Certificate).

The exporters filing Shipping Bills (S/Bs) under drawback shall submit a declaration to the Assistant Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner (Drawback) giving detail of AD bank through whom they route subject export bill and the name of the port through which goods will be exported. The relevant date for filing certificates shall be the date of let export order (LEO) which is the date when the export goods are in effect permitted to be exported.

With the above information, the system would generate on all Drawback Shipping Bills, the due date for submission of BRCs (Bank Realization Certificate). The BRC entry module also enables the Department to remove the list of S/Bs from the pendency list if drawback is recovered subsequently.

How it works?

The exporter shall submit the negative statement/certificate to the nodal officer on half yearly basis  containing details of the shipments which remain outstanding beyond the prescribed time limit (i.e. before the 7th day of January and July in respect of exports which have become due for realization in the previous 6 months). This will allow the officer to enter the S/Bs for which the BRCs are pending.

The software of the department tracks the list of shipping bills under drawback where the BRC/negative statement has not been furnished by the exporter within the prescribed date.  The Assistant Commissioner / Deputy Commissioner (Export) may examine such lists either for the entire Customs port or for an individual exporter by entering the IE code of the exporter and accordingly initiate action to recover drawback.

Earlier, recovery of drawback amount   is initiated against the exporters who have failed to show evidence of export proceeds, on tracking of half yearly Export Outstanding Statement (XOS) submitted by the AD banks to RBI. The system of filing negative statement/certificate is introduced pursuant to  RBI dispensing  with  submission  of  XOS statement declarations   for   export   of goods   of   value not exceeding US Dollars 25,000 w.e.f. 31.01.2014,  which in effect caused a  large  number of   the   export consignments  valuing below USD 25000 fall  outside the purview of  monitoring  mechanism through XOS statements.