More than a hundred amendments, GST circulars and notifications issued by the government since the beginning of GST regime has made the GST act ambiguous and this led to the gripe regarding time limit by Tax and legal consultants.
In addition to the crucial amendment in the GST Act in February 2019, more than 200 GST notifications, including mutations in rules, approx180 tax rate notifications, more than 100 circulars and press releases, 20 orders and over 50 FAQ series & flyers have been issued till yet.
According to the taxpayers and consultants, three months time period granted for filing GST returns for 2017-18 is not sufficient enough to file the returns while considering hundreds of amendments, notifications and circulars which have added complications in the Act.
Official members of the Tax Bar Association which encompasses more than 400 members of chartered accountants, tax consultants, company secretaries and cost advocates expressed their ill feeling on government’s act of complicating the GST procedure and filing of returns with ample mutations in the norms and taxes.
Tax Bar Association (TBA) president Gopal Singhania said,”The government made available GST annual and audit returns form 9, 9A and 9C for 2017-18 online in March 2019 and offline in April 2019, after nearly 20 months and they are giving only three months to understand and file the most complex return form in the history of Indian taxation,” at a press conference.
In addition to multiple alterations which were baffling the citizens, the media handouts and clarification on some points are also clarity deficient and in some cases, they are untuned with the GST norms which have summed up the bewildering scenario. Singhania emphasis on the reconsideration of these points.
He further recommended that a one-time revision of period returns like monthly or quarterly returns is an indispensable requirement for proper and accurate filing of the annual return and the due date of filing of GSTR 9, 9A and 9C for 2017-18 and 2018-19 should be finalised to be kept at one fell swoop (together), so that the entire rapprochement can be attained and reconciliation for both the years can be done.
According to Singhania, this measure will ensure better compliance and reporting and will be highly beneficial particularly for SMEs who have been combated with raised accounting needs after the beginning of the GST regime.
Read also: ITC Mismatch Problem While Filing GSTR 9 Form
His further suggestions include the problem resolution with precise instructions in compliance with GST law and the extension of due date for filing GSTR-9, 9A and GSTR-9C for the year 2017-18 by a minimum of four months till October 31, 2019.
Sanjay Kumar Sureka who is the Vice President of TBA said, “It is very crucial for the government to understand that the present form and law are not in agreement at certain places and are cumbersome as well as ambiguous to some extent”.
People already were not on board with the GST regime and these unnecessary and ample alterations has further contributed to making the Forms confounding and error inclined which will lead to unclear filling and hamper the present scenario.
Bikash Agarwala, Chairman at the association’s Indirect Taxes Committee said that the data which gets auto-populated in GSTR-9 mismatches with monthly GST returns and the form demands many details which are confusing and were never required to be recorded under the GST regime. Many times the petitions were made to sort these confusions out but no clarity was provided by the GOI.
The errors in these monthly and quarterly returns are big deal here because of their irreversible nature. As far as the annual return, GSTR 3B or GSTR 1 or books of accounts is concerned, there is an absence of a basis for filing the return. Moreover, the audit report in Form-9C demands auditor to attest it with “true and correct” instead of the primitive concept of “true and fair”.
Read Also: Download GSTR 9C Offline Utility in Excel Format
TBA member Raginee Goyal also expressed her disagreement on the certification of “true and correct” from the auditor and demanded its abrogation. ‘To err is human and the government must understand this fact that auditors are humans,” she said.