As you are aware, the GST council in its 37th meeting held in September 2019, announced issuance of a revised circular providing clarification regarding supply of Information Technology Enabled Services (ITeS) being made on own account or as intermediary in supersession of Circular no. 107/26/2019-GST dated 18.07.2019).

We recognize that the revised circular is yet to be issued by Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC). However, during our recent interactions with Government officials, it was brought out that the Government would like to understand practical issues faced by ITeS industry in specific detail and have some statistics to enable them to address the subject holistically. Towards this end, we are in the process of gathering inputs on refund claims filed under the service tax regime/ GST that have been denied or held up as a result of authorities seeking to classify IT enables services/ BPO services as “intermediary services”.

In this regard, we request you to share not just details of issues that have culminated in a Show Cause Notice (SCN)/ order but also instances of ongoing enquiries, delayed refunds (which may have been subsequently sanctioned) as a result of interpretations on the intermediary issue.