GST Inspires Tax Officers to Serve Each and Every Issue

One month is about to complete as the country has entered into the new regime. Nearly 15 officers and inspectors from the tax department have been spending long time hours on daily basis to solve the problems and queries of merchants, traders, and taxpayers. At GST help desks, each officer deal with 10 cases in a day which is generally related to the digital signatures and PAN mismatch.

For the successful implementation ahead of GST, 42 helpline centres have been launched by the tax department in Mumbai to help new as well as existing taxpayers. Initially, tax officers who had attended a long day training for this and currently they are busy in handling the technical and procedural issues or problems faced by traders.

Currently, two centres are running in Mumbai which is handled by tax officers and inspectors- first one at Mazagaon and the second one at Bandra GST Bhavan. Mahavir Pendhari, Assistant Tax Commissioner who handled a team of 15 and also handle 10 visitors in a day at Bandra Bhavan, GST help desks. At the nine helpdesks in Bandra, generally, traders or user come up with problems such as technical, portal and fresh GST Registration.

Gunwant Gaikwad, Deputy GST Commissioner which looks after the Centre of Bandra said, “Majority of the visitors is small traders from suburban areas.”

“These are usually small retailers and manufacturers who do not have a chartered accountant to consult and come to us with their queries,” said Mahendra Gawali, a tax inspector at a help desk.

At Help desk Centres tax officers have to deal with such kind of queries such as paper framework, online registration process, and technical issues like PAN mismatch and not able to upload digital signatures at GSTN portal. In the centres, boards displayed on the walls in which mentioned what documents are required for fresh GST Registration.

Till now 364 visitors have been visited in the centres. Out of them, 31 queries were relating to the PAN issues, 34 users were facing the issue on uploading digital signatures and 42 queries relating to the registration. Apart from GST Helpline Centres, GST department also solves queries through online within 48 hours. Users can reach with state tax department either by calling on 1800225900 or emailing at mgst.helpdesk@gmail.com.

The work pressure has increased since July 1. Work hours stretch from 9 AM to as late as 8 PM. “We usually work from 9 am to 6 pm but in case a dealer wants to come later, we attend to them and then leave by 8 pm,” said Samadhan Rupnar, another tax inspector.

“The main thrust for setting up these centres was the fact that there are 8,00,000 live taxpayers in Mumbai who became liable to migrate under the GST,” said, Gaikwad, Tax Inspector.