The Ambajogai Tax Practitioners Association is one of leading Taxpayers and Professionals association in Marathwada Region of Maharashtra has raised 10 Issues Faced by Professionals & Taxpayers in GST since 2017.

1. Issue Related to Facility to file revised Returns

The association has recommended that if revised return of Form GSTR 3B is allowed, it is not going to have an impact as such on recipient tax credit. Recipient derives tax credit from GSTR 1. Therefore, revised return of GSTR 3B can be provided without any issue. The Income Tax Act allows revision of ITR. Even erstwhile VAT law allowed them to file revised returns. This is also helpful for taxpayers to ensure and check each month’s liability is paid. However, till date taxpayers under GST have not provided such a facility yet. It is a very important issue faced by all taxpayers. Err is Human. Therefore, we request the government to provide a facility to correct the mistakes and errors by way of Revised Return Facility.

2. Issue of ITC mismatch

Some mechanism should be provided for correction of B2C, wrong GSTIN from 2017 to 2021 at earliest. In Maharashtra VAT Law, Ledger confirmation like concept was introduced. The GST Council and government should urgently think of bringing some mechanism to provide relief in these genuine cases. Since proper infrastructure was not provided and GST being a new law, 100% responsibility should not be casted upon the buyer for period 2017 to 2021 for payment of tax by supplier. It is the first and foremost duty of a GST Officer to catch such people who don’t make tax payments to the government. If the government thinks to recover said ITC from 2017 to 2021 from buyer businessmen, without being provided proper infrastructure, it will amount to shut down/killing of many small taxpayer’s business. No coercive and hard action should be taken by authority from 2017 to 2021 for ITC mismatch issues. Government should provide some mechanism at earliest.

3. Issue of ITC Denial

There are other law to govern payment compliance to small taxpayers (MSME Act) and therefore GST law should not specify any time limit for payment to suppliers. Also Interest should not be asked for this. This provision, instead of supporting the MSMS, is on ground level / practically, found to be not convenient and raising heavy interest liability on MEMS on account of not compliance. Therefore it is requested that, GST Law should not monitor time limit of payment between supplier or customer or higher time limit ( say 2 year) should be provided.

4. Rate of Interest more in Delayed Payment and less in Delayed Refund

In case of wrong availment of ITC/delayed payment of tax or any other reason, Interest is demanded at 24%/18%. This is very high. Due to the financial crisis, taxpayers are not able to make payment of tax and such a high interest rate is very harsh and demotivating the compliance.

The Association has requested that rate of interest under GST should be rational to recover government loss. It is recommended that interest should be equal to interest rate on refund or 1.5 time of interest rate on refund but it should not be more than 12% in today’s scenario where Bank interest on FDs/Loan are reduced drastically.

5. E-Way Bill Not Be Required , In Case Of Applicability Of E-Invoice

For taxpayers to whom E Invoice is made applicable, for him E Way bill should be relaxed, since both the document is serving the same purpose.

Government should comply what they stated in parliament. Also, Revenue Secretary in Dec 2020 has given statement that, government is thinking of relaxing the E-way bill, if the E invoice is prepared. The association recommended the government should implement it at earliest. This recommend if accepted, will ease Make in India, and India’s Ease of doing business Ranking globally.

6. Minor Discrepancies in E-Way Bill causes imposition of Huge Penalties

The Association recommended that scope of circular to be increased to cover below  Error in invoice date,  Expiry of e way bill (but still vehicle was on road and travelling), Tax rate is wrongly selected in E way bill but description, value and HSN is correctly mentioned on E invoice and E way bill. Also, maximum penalty should be levied in other clerical error, should not exceed 10% of tax amount or Rs 10,000/- whichever is lower. (Presently, same is 100% and also instead of reducing, it is increased to 200% but it is not yet made effective).

7. Waiver Of Late Fee For GSTR 4, GSTR 10 For 2017 To 2021

Government has provided a late fee amnesty scheme to reduce the late fee of GSTR 3B. However, most of the taxpayers of GST (might be more than 50%) are composition Taxpayers who are required to file GSTR 4. However, in the recent late fee amnesty, they are not covered. This is causing injustice on said category of taxpayer without any reason.

Also, on cancellation GSTR 10 is required to be filed. Late fees in such cases are too high. Same should be reduced to make it rational. The association strongly requests that the Government should consider late fee amnesty for these categories of returns at earliest.

8. Appeals not heard in absence of GST Tribunal

The Government should provide immediate instruction that all appeal cases should be taking for hearing within 1-2 months and should be completed at earliest. Now soon 5 years will be completed from GST Implementation Day 1 July 2017. It is now high time for government to form and make the GST Tribunal functioning.

9. ITC on Business Promotion Expenses

ITC on All Business Promotion expenses should be allowed including Gift / Sample, which are given in normal course of business, since without this, business cannot be done. While calculating costing for finished goods, company ensure to add cost of such expenses and indirectly GST is also paid on it. Therefore it is requested that ITC on such basic expenses should be allowed.

10. GST Annual Return has major issues

Current Form of GST Annual Return has major issues. It doesn’t provide any tax calculation. Many Taxpayers found it is difficult to fill this form. Tax paid voluntarily through DRC 03 is not linked with Annual Return. Annual Return is important for Government officer too to check that whether taxpayer has paid all taxes correctly or not. However current form of GSTR 9, lacks all such ingredient.

“Government is also learning in GST and that’s why hundreds of notifications/circulars are issued to make amendment. However, this sympathy is not provided to taxpayer. GST Law should not try to get success at the cost of lakhs of Taxpayer. GST is there, because of Taxpayer. Therefore, it is very important that the government and GST Council should give at most attention to basic issues of taxpayers which are not been resolved since 2017. Else this will increase lot of stress and dissatisfaction among trade and professionals,” the Association recommended.