Its High Time now GSTN needs to accept its failure and look out for options to ease hardships faced by professionals and Tax payers

Just heard of an Insensitive statement from Revenue Secretary that GSTN faced issued because of mentality of Tax payer to rush at the Last moment. With all due respect, i feel you knew of this mentality but still you couldn’t develop a strong and robust IT system which could take the load of such huge Data, such last minute rush. Forget the last day rush, site was evidently inoperative or non functioning days before its due date. Like for eg :- Its 8th Sept today and site isn’t working since 1pm. Here as well i feel mistake is of professional who are working during day light to complete the pending returns. Professionals should work at night when load would be less.

Lets have a look at some of issues faced by taxpayers and Professionals in past few months 30th June 2017:- Government stopped trucks on highway and didn’t let it pass till it was inspected by a GST officer. Its important to note here that GST wasn’t even applicable on 30th June. Serpentine of the trucks almost blocked major higher which allowed to pass by after due inspection which happened as late as evening of 1st July, 2017.

July, 2017

• Tax payers were busy figuring as to what is to done if goods are received in pre gst regime and the same is now to be returned for some reason. Should they issue a Credit/Debit note to that extend or should they issue a Invoice with GST charged on it.
• Exporters, who contribute to the Foreign exchange of the country had to faced Hardships while exporting goods/ services. Rules of LUT/Bonds weren’t clear which added to confusion of the already boiling issue. Exports under BOND/LUT was totally new concept for Service sector entities and am afraid many would raised Invoices without payment of IGST. Exports went down by more than 20%.
• Next is SEZ units, these units are under real threat , because they do not know if anyone charges them IGST, should they pay the vendor and claim a refund of it ???However Notification no 18/2017 IT has a different story to tell.
• Transition forms not available online. Government knew that people may require to offset their liability under GST regime through legitimate credit  of earlier taxes paid. However still they to wait for the right Muhrat to make available Trans-1. Fortunately 21st august was the lucky day.
• Just to pacify the taxpayer government comes with a scheme. Taxpayers can just provide summary of transactions in Form 3B , pay taxes by 20th of month following July and August and relax. GSTR 1 & 2 can be filed later. 3B was brought as a replacement to GSTR 3 hence technically one need not file GSTR3 now. However government later realizes that this would affect their system and hence they made GSTR3 filing mandatory within a specified time frame.
• Curious case of reverse charge. Even today this remains one of the most debated topic. Is reverse charge applicable in this transactions??? If yes at what rate.

          Credit of the payment will be available or not??? if yes in which month.

          GTA attracts reverse at what rate 5% or 12%??? whether cenvatable or not??

Whether payments made under Reverse charge by Exporters, will that amount be available for claiming refund??

Sez units are confused because they are exempted from paying taxes to registered persons under Notification 18/2017 IT however they have to make payments under Reverse charge for inward supplies received from unregistered person???

• Composition dealer:- It seems they are the most neglected set of people while council was deciding on their existence. Initially the limit kept was of Rs 50lacs which was later increased to 75 lacs. This move was shown as “massiha of small trader” They don’t have to furnish Invoice wise details only summary on quarterly basis needs to filed. However, reverse charge was not done away for them. Government needs to understand that these are small traders, many of illiterate and cannot maintain proper books of account. How can you expect them to keep a track on Payments made to unregistered person.??

Well if you think its over yet, Think Again

Comes August and here’s a trip down memory lane

1st week:-GSTN releases GSTR 3B and sets a deadline of 20th August 2017 for payment of taxes and filing. But hang on, Trans-1 form to claim old credits wasn’t live.

2nd Week:- Series of tweets were made to GSTN official twitter handle to understand if the transition credit can be claimed in GSTR 3B or no, and as expected it gave two contradictory statements with utmost ease and confidence. Taxpayers and professional were going crazy not only because of the contradictory views but also cause of snail speed of gst website.

3Rd week:- After multiple representation and pressure from government finally realizes that amount blocked as transition credit aren’t their proprietary and tax payers must be allowed to take credit of it. Hence they issued Press release that” Taxpayers who wish to take credit of transition period can file GSTR 3B by 28th August. However they need to pay differential tax liability on or before 20th August else interest would leviable. This was an epitome of arrogance, since tax payers had all the rights to claim interest for the money blocked by government in the name of Transition credit . Ideally government should have introduced Trans-1 by First week of July, however they didn’t

So confusion again was is my due date for filing GSTR 3B -20th August or 28th August?

However this confusion was put to a new twist by extending deadline by full 5 days i.e new due date was 25th August. In the meantime government made genuine efforts and finally brought Trans 1 live on 21st August , 2017. It is to noted here that extension was granted not because site was down or crashed. It was an obligation by GST council on tax payers because Tax payers demanded and they felt right to grant it. Atleast this is what their press release states.

Government charged Late filing fees of Rs 200 per day of default under two different sections of CGST and SGST Act. This was done even when government had issued a press release in June 2017, that NO Penalty would be charged for Late filing or filing incorrect details. Tax payers had no Option but to pay it since they wanted to get their returns filed.

Serious concerns were raised on preparation of GSTN cause it crashed when data entered were merely summary of transactions in the form of numbers. Invoice wise details would have lead to “RIP GSTN”

Somehow, we lived through July to see August and to welcome September.

1St week:-Government suddenly realized that it was going back on its words of not levying penalty. Hence government comes up with a scheme that Penalty would be waived off for Late filing of GSTR 3B. However it was tight lipped on status of tax payers who have already paid the same.

GST starts to feel pressure of enormous data filled in GSTR 1. But government knew it was coming and had exact idea that site would crash and hence this time they gave extension a day before the due date. Generally government only gives extension on the last day.

Here we are on the 8th September and we must acknowledge the thorough sense of responsibility of our finance secretary that from nowhere he found out one reason to blame the tax-payers and that their mentality to file returns on the last day for crash of their systems.

On a very serious note sir and with all due respect, we professionals and Tax payers are working day -night to get accustom with the new law and its compliance. We are certainly cooperating with you at all the possible level so that ship carrying such weight sails through. Tax payers have more complains then compliments here and such arrogant statement would invite undue backlash from them.  Humble request to not issue such derogatory statements which affects the motivation of tax payers. We believe GSTN should accept its failure and council must come with a possible solution which can end this undue trauma.

One such solution is Filings to be made quarterly while payment of taxes stays monthly. Returns should be made such to accept Party wise details on Quarterly basis rather than Invoice wise on monthly. This would reduce the load on site by almost 70%. It would also give a breather to GSTN to develop and test check new system to handle enormous data.

We hope this plea is considered at appropriate level and is taken up in right sense.We are welcome change but not the way it is being forced upon us.