3 Months with GST -Where does India Stand Today

GST – Non-Debatable Fact

GST, the largest tax reform in the country post-Independence, is presently the non-debatable fact wherein the main advantage that have been enhanced are the incorporating of various state together with central-level taxes in organization, simplification of compliances, continuous flow of Input Tax credits together with alleviation of surging effect of taxation and probable decrease in tax rates for the majority of goods and services.

GST has been considered as not merely a tax reform but something which is much more as a technological reform and GST with GSTN has been received as a different perspective of working of government portals. GSTN had introduced open-headed architecture thus empowering circulated flow of returns as well as improvements from private sectors.

The chairman of GSTN had quoted hat while the filing due dates for GSTR-3B, would be about 80,000 returns filed onto the GSTN portal and with these vast reform in carrying out, the challenges in its roll-out together with implementation would definitely be there. GST encountered some challenges with the infrastructure and awareness with the pre-fixed due dates in July. In order to bring about the awareness on GST in the industry, the government together

with the CBEC had proactively engaged for level transition in GST.
 

Supported with Workshops

 
The concerns of agreements with regards to Indian business had been talked with the support of workshops, GST awareness programmes, Seva Kendra, CBEC Mitra Helpdesk together with various other initiatives. The GST Portal with the provision of interactive and user friendly website has offered comprehensive user manuals, FAQs in order to make the tax payers familiar with every related compliances and returns, related to GST.

Besides this, tax payers are also made aware on the important announcements together with the activities with provisions of their queries being resolved through the official social media channels. The last few months also showed the overflow of queries from the traders as well as manufacturers on the stock in position with them from the pre-GST period while some of the queries were on the transitional credits. The government, in the midst of all these queries and chaos, had come up with strong explanations on these queries. Moreover they had also bestowed the tax payer with a choice of carrying forward tax or duty on any prevailing law or on goods that were in stock as on 30th June 2017 to GST via the transitional forms.
 

One Time Revision

 
Due date for filing of TRAN 1 had been extended to 31st October 2017. Besides this the tax payers had also been provided with a choice of a onetime revision to this type of return should any errors or omissions arise. GST is said to strengthen tax compliance through reconciliation as well as authentication of invoices thereby reducing the likelihood of back-dating invoices and deceitful tax credits. The lower tax burden along with Input Tax Credit is said to be alleged in reducing the cost of materials as well as logistics thereby enhancing the economy. The operational implementation of GST now depends on the precision of Invoices.

However it was seen that businesses had been modifying their Invoice formats to accommodate with GST, the registration under GST that had been made completely digital and transparent, was also considered. Around 7 million businesses had migrated to GST with the addition of another 2.5 million renewed registrations. Though GSTN has been permitted through its portal, the amendment in core as well as non-core fields filled in by the registered companies, cancellation of registration for these units freely registered under GST tends to be one-sided questions.
 

Extension of Due Dates – Confusion with Tax Payers

 
The government has provided extensive support for the extension of due dates but these extensions of due dates over and over again has also brought about confusion with the Tax payers of the due dates against the month wherein the returns need to be filed. Due date for July had been extended till 10th, 31st October and November 10th respectively to permit the tax payers in filing their returns without much trouble.

 Presently 50 lakh tax payers had filed in July GSTR 3B and about 31 lakh had filed July GSTR 1 and 24.33 crores invoices had been uploaded in the GSTN Portal. In order to make provision to this extensive filing mechanism, it is obvious that GSTN needs additional few months to settle the same. But the main test for GSTN would be the filings for GSTR-2A where several challenges will be seen with the pull and push of data for the purpose of filings.

A recently held 22nd Council Meeting of GST had been programmed on the completion of three months of GST which brought about various relaxation filled for the tax payers. This type of relaxation would definitely be a comfortable move of the Government which would also make the campaign with the provision of GST as a Good and Simple tax.