Tax Advocates Association of Gujarat (TAAG) organized an Open House with tax professionals where they put forth various contention related to the late issue of refunds, registration and other issues with GST Network (GSTN). This meeting indeed brought a sign of relief for Advocates as tax officials denied any orders to Central GST (CGST) and State GST (SGST) officials to halt the refunds under Goods and Services Tax (GST).
In reply to the attack of complaints by tax practitioners, Ajay Jain, chief commissioner of CGST in Gujarat said “There are no orders to stop refunds (as the financial year is coming to an end). We are disposing requests of refunds at the earliest. We will take no more than a week to clear the refunds,”
In the Open House, where taxpayers argued that they have come to know that their refund will be kept on pause for some time because of the year-end work pressure.
Jain jilted the altercations of taxpayers saying that refunds are not issued to maintain revenue numbers.
SGST authorities were appealed by Tax practitioners for the dispensation of refunds on the lines of CGST, even when purchases are not exhibited in GSTR-2A, filed by the seller, because the buyer has bills and other legitimate evidence to lawfully approach for the refund.
Varis Isani, former president of TAAG and coordinator of the Open House also brought the attention of the tax officials to the revised sequence of GST refunds from February 1 without the enhancement of GSTN which may lead to an unacceptable situation when departments will circulate the notices later because of the incompatibility of the system.
TAAG recommended a consonance scheme to relinquish the imminent issues under the previous Value Added Tax (VAT), which was included under GST.
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Ajay Kumar, special commissioner of SGST admitted that the Open House will help them dig the policy related issues deeper & better and accordingly GSTN will be referred to appropriate authorities.
Open house evolved a long campaign which witnessed the participation of over 450 tax practitioners across the state who came there to seek redressal and become part of this big meeting.
