Twitter, a microblogging site, has had its fair share of promoters and negators. Those in favour see it as an ideal platform for reaching out to millions of people, customers, as well as clients. However, it can also be taxing as opinions can be hard to swallow and not all are that versed in vocabulary. But social media is a good tool for governance. It can both be used to create awareness as well as hear public grievances and offer a prompt resolution. Hence, a decision to discontinue the GST official Twitter account came as a surprise to many. Reportedly, the GST@GoI (@askGST_GoI) twitter account had just completed its first anniversary and was regularly used by the Government to clarify respective tax positions and procedures post the implementation of India’s new indirect tax law i.e GST.
The Government claims that it has successfully put in place a robust and completely active public redressal system. Taxpayers can now easily engage with tax departments and a prompt mechanism for real-time GST solutions is now in place. An August 1 tweet from the handle sought public reaction on the newly introduced GST return forms did exactly that. Besides, other tweet activities include retweets of other government account tweets, PIB press releases on GST impact, GST compensation made to states as well as creating awareness about return filing and anti-profiteering norms. The last activity on the handle was a retweet of a @PMOIndia tweet.
Although the now discontinued twitter handle was time and out used for instant revert back on multiple GST queries, the tweets were never granted legal status and used for guidance only. Experts and political analyst though beg to differ. As per them, official Twitter accounts are used by people to clarify ambiguities. However, in the case of the official GST Twitter account, some of its tweets were contradictory to the general interpretation of GST law and hence caused penalties for taxpayers. Subsequently, the industry requested a withdrawal of penalties while referring to the tweets. To avoid any such future disagreements, misinterpretations, as well as contradictions the GST@GoI (@askGST_GoI) account, has been discontinued.
Tax experts believe that the handle was primarily useful in handling issues, especially technical glitches. However, it also resulted in contradictory interpretations which caused a lot of concern.
Read Also: Ways To Avoid Mismatches in GST Return for Better Compliance
The Government has lauded the handle for its usefulness in first-hand information gathering on taxpayer and business world issues. But a major concern has been regarding some of the advice provided via the micro-blogging site by its admins. It has left the government red-faced more than once.
Some Notable Crucial Points Include:
The Twitter handle had informed that no GST would be availed on services offered by the corporate office of a corporation to its state units. This was, however, a complete opposite to how things panned out at the end. Now GST is incurred by head offices for it employee related service to other units/branches.
Another contradiction appeared regarding input tax credit on leasing charges of motor vehicles. While GST Tax experts stated that no such provisions were there. The Twitter handle felt otherwise.
Casting these contradictions aside, the official GST twitter handle played a successful vital role during the early days of GST. It routinely cleared multiple taxpayers doubts as well as was created positive GST awareness. Hence there is no denying the fact that services would dearly be missed.
However, there is no need to worry, SAG Infotech is ready with an expert team of law and finance experts. For any queries, you can simply go the comment section of the blog and type in your doubts. We assure a prompt and crisp reverts/solution to all your queries as soon as possible.
