(Riya Singh, Intern Journalist): Smooth execution sans technical glitches is critical for the revamped and simplified goods and service tax (GST) return filing system, said, experts. They batted for adequate testing of the new facility by GST Network before its proposed roll-out in September. The rollout of GST in July 2017 subsequently saw several glitches in return filing and multiple deferments of deadlines.
“Businesses would expect that adequate sandbox testing is done by GSTN and there are no perfunctory changes, which ultimately impact their current compliance set-up,” said Harpreet Singh, partner for indirect taxes at KPMG India.
The government plans to link GSTR 1, the form used to fill outward supplies, with GSTR 3B, used to fill returns summary, which will reduce the mismatch of information through auto-population. The linking would also lead to reduced cases of input tax credit mismatch, unintended errors, and also prevent tax evasion.
A new form GSTR 2B will be introduced as a statement for taxpayers providing details on available input tax credit and ineligible credit. Quarterly filing facility of GSTR 3B for taxpayers will less than Rs 5 crore annual turnover, is also in the pipeline.
“Linkages of the various pieces of information filed by taxpayers in order to minimize manual data interventions by taxpayers would assist all businesses,” said MS Mani, partner at Deloitte India.
Insiders said that the government decided to revamp the existing system, instead of developing a new one, to ensure stability for taxpayers that have been complaining of glitches and errors in the system. The GST Council has also cautioned GSTN of beefing up the system to reduce the number of complaints.
Experts added that if a new system was to be set up, it could have led to changes in ERP systems, which would mean additional cost of compliance for taxpayers.
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