Duty, Tax Remission Scheme Benefits Extended To E-Commerce Exports

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal announced on Thursday that the benefits under the RoDTEP scheme will be extended to include e-commerce exports through post or courier.

Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products is a scheme that offers rebates on duties and taxes incurred that are otherwise not refunded through any other scheme at any level and remain embedded in the export value. Some of these include VAT and excise duty on the fuel used in transportation costs, mandi tax, municipal taxes, property taxes and stamp duty on export documents, among others.

An official notification on the matter will be released soon, the minister said on Thursday.

Currently, e-commerce players who are exporting are not getting RoDTEP benefits, according to a senior government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. RoDTEP benefits will now be available to e-commerce exporters and for that, whatever IT-enablement is required with the Department of Revenue is being worked upon and they will finalise it soon, the official said.

The department is planning to bring it to implementation speed in the upcoming 2–2.5 months, the person quoted above said.

The move is aimed at benefiting those e-commerce exports that go through the postal and courier routes, and the value of such exports is estimated at $1.5 billion, the official said.

An estimate from e-commerce platforms places merchandise e-commerce exports at $7-8 billion.

The benefits are expected to be available across sectors, excluding ones that generally remain outside the purview of RoDTEP—such as petroleum, gold, etc.