The Kerala government has issued GST Circular No. 3/2025, dated 20th January 2025, providing clarifications and instructions on the issuance of separate notices under Sections 73 and 74 of the Kerala SGST Act, 2017.
Directives were issued in the past via Circular No. 06/2023 (dated 08-01-2023) and Circular No. 16/2023 (dated 09-10-2023) to give directions to the officers in issuing the tax notices. The statute needs tax issues to be managed separately based on the type of tax default.
GST Circular No. 16/2023
- Under each section, the notices should be issued separately to prevent chaos in statutory proceedings.
- If an assessee faces various tax problems that come under both sections 73 and 74 they should get separate notices:-
- Section 73 wraps the taxes that were not filed or underfiled as of the glitches (without fraud).
- Section 74 covers tax not filed as of the fraud or intentional misrepresentation.
- GST law complies with a subject-based system which means the taxpayer’s different tax problems should be considered separately.
What is the Motive For Issuing the New Circular?
Some tax officials even after previous guidelines merged notices for sections 73 and 74 which makes it challenging to perform the statutory proceedings. Now the Kerala SGST department has furnished clear norms for issuing separate notices under each section to resolve the same problem.
Guidelines for Issuing Notices and Orders
- Managing multiple notices in the GST system- At present the GST system permits one notice per case ID only. The officers till a technical solution is available should make a new case ID for each additional notice.
- Support from Back-Office Teams: The district and state tax offices shall assist the officers comply those new norms.
- Avoiding Artificial Splitting of Notices: U/s 73 all tax issues must included in a single notice under that section. U/s 74 all tax issues must be comprised in a single notice under that section. The notices must not be broken up year-wise merely to make multiple cases.
- Method to issue notices- Each case mandates a detailed show cause notice to be prepared manually. The summary (GST DRC-01) notices should thereafter uploaded online via the GST portal.
Any issues in the following such new norms must be reported to the commissioner.
