GST Complaint Application Form Made Less Complex

Application protest shape documenting against the Companies who are not passing the tax benefits to the clients is expected to be simplified. The government is to come up with the simplified version of anti-profiteering application complaint form.

The GST Council will have the meeting on the 10th March, to consider the issue of simplifying the anti-profiteering complaint application form.

The government has received the muted response to the mechanism and 150 complaints so far. Only six states have received complaints directly. No complaints have directly comes from Delhi, Gujarat, West Bengal, Bihar, Telangana, and Madhya Pradesh.

The chairman of anti-profiteering authority B N Sharma, has asked the standing committee to suggest the simplify the application form.

An official also said that “The form will soon be simplified. Even a grade-five student will be able to file a complaint. The mandatory fields have been cut down to a great extent.”

In the current form, they asked the detailed information about the sale price, taxes (before and after GST), benefits of input credits, etc. They also require details such as the GST identification number of the company and the six-digit harmonized system of nomenclature (HSN) code of products. Also, a separate application form is also needed to be filled in case any good or services are under the speculation of anti-profiteering.

Whereas in the revised version of the form, they only have to fill the complaint against the product by mentioning the product and GST identification number of the seller. The rest of the job will be of the government, to investigate and make a case.

The complaint system is a three-stage process — state-level screening committee for local complaints and a standing committee for national-level complaints, besides investigation by the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS).

Research department of anti-profiteering authority, the Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) has sent the notice to many companies like Pyramid Infotech, Honda Motor Vehicles, Lifestyle International and Hardcastle Restaurants (master franchisee of McDonald’s), to answer the charge of not passing the input credit tax of the new tax regime-GST to the final customers. They have asked the organization to provide their balance sheet, trial balance, profit and loss accounts of the previous year.

Till date, state-level screening committee has received only 23 complaints, while the Centre-standing committee has received only 63 complaints. The 23 states that submitted the complaints are Uttar Pradesh, Andhra and Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand.