It came into the concern of the businessmen when Delhi Disaster Management Authority announced to keep private offices shut. While several of them have argued that it is not possible or feasible to work from home in every business. They also explained that it would not possible especially for the small business to work from home. Individuals who have field job and who has worked similar to warehouses for their duties are too anxious that either they are allowed to operate.
Rakesh Kumar Gupta, a chartered accountant, said that the DDMA orders came at a time when everyone was busy preparing to file the GSTR -1 returns for the October – December quarter. “If we fail to file the returns for lack of documents or other reasons, then our clients will face the repercussions Gupta told.”
The GSTR filing is a major GST filing form that needs to be necessarily filed to claim the income tax credit on time. If the tax professionals become absent from the offices to file the clients filing, then there would be a complete disbalance among the ITC claims.
“Brijesh Goyal, chairman of the Chamber of Trade & Industry, declared that he was fronting an overflow of queries from members. People in wholesale markets have converted their shops into offices for clerical and ledger work, while goods are transported directly from godowns mostly located close to their work areas,” said Goyal. They are confused whether such establishment can be opened or not. Also, if they close the shops-cum-office and work from home, how can they cope with the transportation of goods, for which they would need to visit the market or interact with workers.”
However, several have appealed to the state authority to provide them with some time to execute the directive – “Within a day, it is impossible for us to make alternative arrangements. We have to have a few days to distribute responsibilities to workers.” stated Goyal – While many others have thought to ask DDMA on Wednesday in order to get clarity on the direction related to offices cum shops in retail areas.
Once a trader wondered when he saw that shops has been allowed to open in one alternative day as per the odd-even shop number, why could not be the corporate offices been allowed in the same way. “The strength of our workforce has reduced to 50% as per DDMA’s previous order. Now we have to manage new restrictions too he added.”
Although the shop possessions have also mentioned that January 13 will be the due date for submitting GST returns, and in recent situations, it would create trouble for them because they can’t provide whole records to the chartered accountants if the offices continued to shut.
