Seeking problems faced by taxpayers in GST filing, GST practitioners have come forward in order to form a Joint Action Committee (JAC). The committee will work parallelly to advise on how to make GST compliance simple and easy to file a return. It will also observe the procedure of transfer of money of businesses which should not be stuck in midway in terms of getting refunds. It is the conclusion of the 2-day long national conclave organized for GST practitioners in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.
This committee was formulated in order to assist the tax practitioners and businessmen as they face problems at the starting level of form filing. According to a tax practitioner, “GST is a national Act, which subsumes most of the Acts governing states and central taxes. There is no way local tax practitioners can represent their cases to GST Council. Such a national body is the need of the hour.”
In the national conclave, around 200 delegates from Union Territories and all states were present and the representatives from every state are announced to take part in the JAC. To assist the JAC activities, a core body under JAC is also expected to establish resultantly.
The nation-wide conclave discussed many problems, and also paid attention to a solution to easy the GST system and also will submit the report to the GST Council. Axat Vyas, among the organizers of the conclave, mentioned during the meeting, “The upcoming meeting of GST Council has suggested 46 amendments, the conclave deliberated on a wider range of issues. We were surprised at the kind of issues faced under GST in different parts of the country.”
Some of the suggestions are given on creating an activity log for businesses to record the actions, permitting rectification of returns, a single-click filing of returns on monthly basis, and so on. The Conclave also discussed and considered shortcoming in the Act.
The participants of the Conclave also discerned that GST portal doesn’t work uniformly for all the states as some states acquaint with dysfunctioning while other are filing the returns easily or with fewer problems. A tax practitioner from Maharashtra also said that the IT backbone of the GST system is not strong and the Act as well. He mentioned, “All commissioners are given an authority to extend the deadline to file taxes by three months, but they have never used this discretion.”
A tax practitioner from Karnataka also advised allowing conventional tax practitioner to audit GST returns. As, under newly implemented Goods and Services tax, only Cost Accountants and Chartered Accountants are permitted to place audit reports.
