Comments on GST Issues Raised by GSTPAM (Must Read)

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL TAX: PUNE-I COMMTSSTONERATE
GST BHAWAN, 41/A, SASOON ROAD, opp. WADIA GOLLEGE: PUNE- 411001
Tel: 020-261 13810 Fax: 020-261 13810 Email: legalcelpune1@gmail.com

SPEED POST

F. No. LC/Civil-04/abicor/2018/2227

Pune: 13.06.2018

To,
The President,
The Goods & Services Tax Practitioners’ Association of Maharashtra
(formerly known as The Sales Tax Practitioners’ Association of Maharashtra / STPAM)
8 & 9 Mazgaon Tower, 21 Mhatar Pakhadi Road,
Mazgaon, Mumbai – 400 010,

Sir,

Sub:- Meeting between Commissioners of GST and the Goods and Services Tax Practitioners’ Association of Maharashtra (GSTPAM) as per directions of the Bombay High Court in WP(L) 424/2018 and WPST 2230/2018 – req

Please refer to your letter dated 01-03-2018 on the above subject wherein various points were submitted by you for this office perusal.

2. In this connection, please find  enclosed comments received from GST policy wing and GST Network for  Kind information.

Encl: As above

 Yours faithfully,

(Satbir Sharma)

Assistant Commissioner Central Tax,

Pune-I Comm’te

Issues pertaining to GST Policy Wing from the agenda for meeting between Commissioners of GST and Goods and Services Tax– Practitioners Association as per the directions of Bombay High Court

S No.	Issue	Comments
1.	State Commissioner should extend deadlines without waiting for  Council recommendations	The extension of time under sections 37, 38 or 39 of the CGST Act is deemed to be an extension under the respective SGST Acts, and vice versa. However, the power is being exercised uniformly across the country, on the recommendations of the Council to ensure uniformity and fairness in the treatment of all assessees, and to uphold the spirit of cooperative federalism.
2.	Alternate modes of filing returns	The GST Council has set up a ‘Committee on Return Filing’ to look into the issues and requirements of filing returns by the taxpayers. Its mandate is to suggest modifications in GST Returns and related changes in law, rules and formats.
3.	Setting up of facilitation centres	Facilitation centres and GST Seva Kendras have already been set up by the Central and State Governments in order to help and facilitate the taxpayers.
4.	Late fees should not be imposed in the first year at all.	The GST Council in its 23rd meeting held at Guwahati on 10th November 2017 . has recommended that the waiver of late fee payable for delayed filing of return in FORM GSTR-3B for the months of July, August and September. (Notification Nos. 28/2017-Central Tax dated 1st September 2017 and 50/2017-Central Tax dated 24th October 2017 refers). It was also decided that where such late fee was paid, it will be re-credited to their Electronic Cash Ledger under “Tax” head instead of “Fee” head so as to enable the taxpayers to use that amount for discharge of their future tax liabilities. This has already been done by GSTN. Further, it has been decided that for subsequent months, i.e. October 2017 onwards, the amount of late fee payable, by a taxpayer whose tax liability for that month was “NIL”, will be Rs. 20/- per day (Rs. 10/- per day each under CGST & SGST Acts) instead of Rs. 200/- per day (Rs. 100/- per day each under CGST & SGST Acts). For other taxpayers, whose tax liability for that month was not “NIL”, late fee payable will be Rs. 50/- per day (Rs. 25/-per day each under CGST & SGST Acts) instead of Rs. 200/- per day (Rs. 100/- per day each under CGST &SGST Acts). Notification No. 64/2017-Central Tax dated 15th November 2017 has already been issued in this regard.
5.	Returns cannot be blocked for non- payment of late fees	The levy of late fee is governed by Section 47, CGST Act, 2017, which reads as follows: “(1) Any registered person who fails to furnish the details of outward or inward supplies required under section 37 or section 38 or returns required  under section 39 or section 45 by the due date shall pay a late fee of one hundred rupees for every day during which such failure continues subject to a maximum amount of five thousand rupees. (2) Any registered person who fails to furnish the return required under section 44 by the due date shall be liable to pay a late fee of one hundred rupees for every day during which such failure continues subject to a maximum of an amount calculated at a quarter per cent. Of his turnover in the State or Union territory.” Thus, the system has been so designed to ensure the payment of fee while filing the return for the subsequent tax period in order to ensure the government exchequer gets the due amount
6.	Taxpayers whose migration could not be completed due to system issues must be identified and helped to complete statutory compliances.	GST Facilitation centres have been proactively helping out all taxpayers in completing the statutory obligations. Further, IT Grievance Redressal Mechanism has already been put in place.
7.	Date of filing GSTR-3B should be the date when liability is offset	According to the present return filing procedure the process of return filing is complete when the details of tax liability have been entered and the tax liability is offset by making the payment. Both the  aforementioned steps have to be completed for the purposes of reckoning the date of filing of returns and levy of late fee.
8.	Revision of returns and other forms etc.	Common errors being made while submitting the return in FORM GSTR-3B and the steps needed to be taken to rectify the same have been explained in detail in Circular No. 26/26/2017-GST dated the 29th December, 2017. Further, it is a conscious policy decision taken by the GST Council not to allow revision of GST return, as settlement of funds takes place between the Centre and the States based on the said returns.
9.	Payment must be allowed even if returns are not getting filed.	GST establishes a regime of self-assessment, where every taxpayer shall self-assess the taxes payable under the Act and furnish the return for each tax period as specified under section 39. Further, a return shall be considered as valid only where the payment of taxes due is made. The linking of filing of returns with the payment of tax is a conscious policy decision to ensure that the liability under the CGST, SGST, UTGST, IGST and GST Compensation to States) Acts are correctly estimated and discharged by the taxpayers.
10.	Interest on late payment due to portal issues	The GST Council, in its 26th meeting held on 10th March, 2018, discussed the issue of grievance redressal especially regarding technical issues faced by taxpayers  on the common portal. It was recommended Council that the GST Implementation Committee (GIC) shall act as the -IT Grievance Redressal Mechanism in this regard. Accordingly, the GIC has been taking timely decisions to resolve any IT related issues being faced by the taxpayers, and recommending the timely issuance of notifications, orders, circulars etc to this effect.
11.	Common portal must be reponed for filing of TRAN-01 for everYoue along with manual filing
12.	TRAN-02 filing must be permitted to be filed  manually
13.	TRAN-2 monthly filing is cumbersome
28.	Working group to be re-established to coordinate procedural and legal issues
14.	Credit of.IGST Paid on imports when the final registration number was not granted,	According to rule 9 (5) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017, if the proper officer fails to take any action on verification of the application of registration and its approval, – (a) within a period of three working days from the date of submission of the application; or (b) within a period of seven working days from the date of the receipt .of the clarification, information or documents furnished by the applicant under sub-rule (2) ,the application for grant of registration shall be deemed to have been approved. Thus, there may not be any such case where registration was not granted.

Writ Petition (C) No.  2230/2018 filed by M/s Abicor & Binzel Technoweld Pvt. Ltd. v. UOI  & Anr. In High Court of Mumbai – Representations GST Practitioners Association

Serial No. 15:- Credit mysteriously disappearing from the GST Network

Issue: – It has been often seen that even after filing of proper forms and returns, the credit mysteriously disappears from GST Network. This issue is also subject of petitions before the Bombay High Court, notably API, Apollo Tubes v. Union of India [WPST 557/2018] and Viraj Profiles v. Union of India [WP 2385/2018]

Comments: – It is incorrect to suggest that even after filing of proper forms and returns, the credit mysteriously disappears from GST Network. All data saved on the portal remains in the database, The two cases cited above are on different issues.

In APL Apollo Tubes v. Union of India, while filing GST TRAN-1 the status of the Petitioner’s GST IRAN-1 form was reverted from filed to submit. The issue reported in APL Apollo Tubes v. Union of India has already been rectified by GSTN on 27/02/2018.

In Viraj Profiles v. Union of India the issue was regarding non-crediting of transition credit of INR 34.51 Cr in electronic credit ledger of the Petitioner. While submitting Trans-1, the taxpayer has given declaration of CGST amount of 134595627.00. Same ITC of CGST has been credit to ledger, As per database, no declaration of 34.51 Cr. of CGST has been saved/submitted by user. Hence the said amount was not credited in the electronic credit ledger of the Petitioner.

Serial No. 16:- Errors reports showing on the GST Network give no reasons or give irrelevant reasons

Issue:-Many a times, error reports which show on the GST Network do not give any reasons or indicate any particular mistake, leaving the taxpayer to check and re-check each and every field to hunt down the mistake. This consumes a lot of time and substantially delays the filing process.

Similarly, completely irrelevant error reports are generated many ‘a times which create more difficulties in the filing process. GST Network must be directed to correct this.

There is no option for downloading error report in the excel format.

Comments:- For few cases, errors are generic and common on the portal. For all other cases, specific errors are reported on the portal. The error report provides way to solve the issue. In case, the user is not able to resolve the issue, he is advised to report the error number, which helps the technical teams to identify the cause and resolve the same. Error reporting improvement is a continuous process and has been in development right since the GST Portal went live.

The reason of error is given in the error report which can be downloaded from the GST Portal and can be seen in the offline tool and the same can be rectified therein. After correction of error, the taxpayer can generate the returns and upload the same on portal.

Serial No. 17:- Error taking huge amounts of time to show 

Issue:- Many a times, errors take more than 20 minutes to show. If more than one error crops up in a return or form, the same would mean that a lot of time goes just in processing these errors.

Comments:- The returns on GST Portal are processed in asynchronous mode which means the return data is collected from the taxpayer on the portal and is processed offline. The time taken to process and report the status back can vary depending upon many factors like the load on the portal in terms of number of returns filed simultaneously and to be processed, data size to be processed etc. However, GST system has been under continuous optimization and tuning and now the time taken to process and report the errors, if any, is not exceeding 15 minutes. However, as suggested GSTN is continuously improving the technical processes to achieve higher level of efficiency. .

Serial No. 18:- PAN Validation errors at the time of application for registration

Issue:- Many a times there are PAN validation errors at the time of applicable for registration. These must be resolved quickly.

Comments:-Validation errors happen when data provided does not match with those from other agencies like PAN data with CBDT, CIN/DIN data from Ministry of Corporate Affairs etc.. This error has also been observed when the PAN validation services at CBDT is under load especially during last days of Income Tax Return filing. GSTN has now migrated over to a new PAN validation service from CBDT which has significantly reduced such errors.

Serial No. 19:- Amendment to registration-core fields

Issue:-The Process for amendment to registration for core fields is very cumbersome and results in situations where taxpayer is paralyzed if the employee whose mobile number etc. is earlier given leaves the organization. There is an urgent need to simplify this system.

Comments:- The registration form fields (details) are divided into two parts, namely Core and Non-Core. While Core fields require approval of the jurisdictional officer, the Non-Core do not require approval of the Jurisdictional Officer. The Non-core fields can be edited by the authorised representative of the taxpayer. 4,77,332 applications for Core amendment have been filed on the GST Portal as on 15.03.2018.

Change in authorized signatory data is non-core amendment. Therefore, there is no requirement of any approval of GST officer for modifying authorize signatory related data like e-mail ID, registered mobile number, etc. The primary authorized signatory may modify such data under his digital signature or EVC.

However, where the taxpayer had appointed only one authorized signatory/a primary authorized signatory, who had left due to any reason or died and was not available or is making undue demand for preparation of return etc. and is not sharing the User 1D and Password created by him on the GST Portal on behalf of the taxpayer, special arrangement has been made to take care of the situation. The Computer system recognises a user by his user ID and password. Hence, under abovementioned condition manual intervention had to be made, as the system will have no means to identify any claimant on behalf of such taxpayers who have only one authorised signatory who is no more in this world or refusing to provide the user ID/password.

Comment: This issue could arise because of filing wrong data in the offline tool or excel. To avoid such mistakes below advisory/suggestion have been given to the taxpayers.

1. Incorrect GSTIN Format entered in excel. GSTIN entered should be of 15 character & alphanumeric with no blanks or special character in between.

2. Incorrect invoice format/Note number format entered in excel/csv, invoice/Note number should be maximum 16 digits and alphanumeric. Special Characters allowed are / (i.e. forward slash) and — (i.e. Hyphen) only. There should not be any duplicate entry of invoices.

3. In b2c1, invoice value should be more than 250000.

4. Incorrect data format entered in excel/csv. The date format should be dd-minm-yyyy only (e.g. 01-Jul-2017)

5. In case of export, if shipping bill is mentioned then shipping date is mandatory.

6. In GSTRI, Shipping bill date should be on or after the invoice date.

7. Incorrect data entered after decimal. Only two digits need to be entered after decimal (eg: 1234.89).

8. Make sure the UQC is mentioned in HSN section

9. Make sure the state code in POS is two digit in excel/csv

10. Make sure invoice type is mentioned in Invoice Type column.

Serial No. 23:- Upcoming versions are not compatible with the Offline Utility

Issue: – The GSTR-1 v1 .4 not compatible with Offline Utility V2.2, hence older versions i.e. V1.3 is to be used. There are “Amendment” tabs in the new VI.4 utility. But those are of no use as JSON generated from V1.4 is not accepted online 50% of times.

Comment: As a principle backward compatibility is maintained for two versions. However, the same is not maintained, if there is a change in the format of the Return/Form on account of changes in the Law.

Serial No. 24:- No option to delete all entries at the same time

Issue: – The Network does not allow all entries to be deleted at the same time. Each and every entry needs to be individually deleted causing tremendous delay in the filing process. This is unnecessary and must be taken care of urgently.

Comments: Multiple selection of items to be deleted feature is available for all offline tools.

Serial No. 25:- SEZ dealers shown as regular taxpayers on the GST Network.

Comments: This happened with few cases where SEZ taxpayers were migrated as Regular taxpayer. To enable them to get their status changed taxpayers were advised to send their  For such exceptional cases a functionality has been made available on the portal to change the email ID and Mobile number of Authorised Signatory. In such a scenario, the taxpayer can approach his/her Jurisdictional Officer, who can change the mobile number and email ID of Primary Authorized signatory by feeding those of the taxpayer in the system after ascertaining his identity. With this change the taxpayer can retrieve the User ID by using the functionality `forgot user ID’ as the new OTP will come on new mobile number and email. After that he can retrieve the temporary password on updated email and start working.

Using this functionality, available on the portal, email and mobile number of authorised signatory are being changed.

The FAQ’s explaining the process of non-core amendment and the process to reset email address/ and mobile phone number of authorised signatory is available at http://tutorial.gst.gov.in/userguide/registration/Core Fields.htm https://tutorial.gst.gov.in/userguide/registration/index.htm#t=Reset email and mobile number of Authorized Signatory.htm respectively.

Serial No. 20:- Online utility should be available for filing composition returns

Issue:- Online utility is not available for filing composition returns and the offline process results in delay. Online filing should be enable.

Comment:- Composition taxpayers are small in size and hence offline tool was devised for them so that they can prepare their return on their own computer, re-check and then upload the same. This was also done to reduce the chances of error as he can check/re-check the data and calculations. The online utility will be made available shortly.

Serial no. 21 :-“oops” and “access denied” errors

Issue:- Sometimes the GST Network logs out a taxpayer automatically after a “oops” or “access denied” errors and the data also gets wiped out. This is a frequent problem causing tremendous waste of time and energy.

Comment: This error can come because of many reasons, primarily being the inability of Client end application to reach the GST Application Server, especially during ultra-high load conditions. Steps have been taken to correct this issue and ‘the error message has also been updated.

Serial No. 22:-Offline utilities not working properly

Issue: – Despite using the latest offline utility, the following error is displayed due to state of supply selected as 97-Other Territory.

“File could not be uploaded! Download the latest version of offline tool to generate the JSON _.file or ensure to validate your uploaded file against the template published at specification Portal.”

requests on the email: reset.sezflag@gst.gov.in. Scanned copy of LOA for obtaining registration as SEZ /SEZ developer units should be attached.

This advisory has also been issued again on https://www.gst.gov.in/newsandupdates/read/190 on 19/3/2018. Tax authorities have also been requested to send such cases after examining the relevant documents, for updating the status. The change has been effected for all users received so far.

Serial No. 26:- Portal is not updated with law and also does not show latest changes in the portal

Issue:- Changes in law are not reflected in the Portal and also changes in the portal are not notified to users.

Comments:- The GST System reflects the provisions of CGST and 29 State GSTs. Any change in law is notified by appropriate authority and are duly updated on the respective portals of Central/State Government. Keeping in view large number of authorities, GST Portal maintains a page where proper links have been provided to navigate taxpayers to concerned authority. This ensures taxpayer/visitor gets the latest changes. Any new development vis a vis the application on the GST Portal is also updated in news and updates section from time to time and is also explained in social media like Twitter and Facebook by CBIC.

Serial No. 27:- Helpdesk is not able to help taxpayers

Issue:-Quality of service of helpdesk is very poor and the personnel manning the helpdesk frequently do not know what to do when a query is asked. This must be looked into urgently.

Comments: – As the law and technology are both new therefore the taxpayers have many queries and the helpdesk is at times stretched. However, all attempts are made to redress the grievances in a timely manner. The functioning of the helpdesk is closely monitored and required training and inputs are provided to the associates manning the helpdesk.

A new Grievance Redressal Portal for GST (https://selfservice.gstsystem.in/ ) has also been launched to provide for a more enhanced mechanism for resolution and reporting of technical issues of the taxpayer. This Portal has been designed for raising grievances by taxpayers and other stakeholders. They can lodge Complaint on the Portal indicating issues or problems faced by them while working on GST portal instead of sending emails to the Helpdesk. It has been designed in a manner that the user can explain issues faced and upload screenshots of pages where they faced the problem, for quick redressal of grievances.

Having this portal has the following advantages:

• Enable the user to lodge his complaint and raise tickets himself.
• To provide all required information and reducing to and fro communication between helpdesk and the tax payers, helping to reach a faster resolution.
• Enable the tax payer to check the progress of resolution of his complaint by using the ticket number (acknowledgement number generated after a complaint is lodged).
• Check the resolution comments in case the complaint/ticket is closed.
• Based on selection of category/subject and sub-category, portal provides relevant FAQ/pages of User manual to help the user resolve the problem faced by him.