GST: GoM to meet stakeholders today to discuss return filing process

A Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Bihar Finance Minister Sushil Modi will be meeting different stakeholders today to devise a simple, single-stage return filing process, to reduce compliance burden and ease procedures for businesses under GST.

Non-Executive Chairman of Infosys Board Nandan Nilekani, officials from Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), along with Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) Ajay Bhushan Pandey will also be present at the meeting.

The GoM was set up by the GST Council to make the return filing process smooth and less complex, especially for the small taxpayers. Despite couple of consultations with IT experts over the last four months, meetings have remained inconclusive.

In the last meeting in March, the GST Council discussed two alternate models for simplification of return filing. However, there was no definitive view regarding the same. Tax officials have been deliberating whether provisional input tax credit should be provided to businesses and if it should be linked with payment of tax under GST.

“Tax bureaucracy of states and the Centre felt that simplification should not provide room for evasion…the Council was of the view that there should be single return every month, it should be simple, not prone to evasion and (look at) how to simplify it further. So no decision was taken today. The existing system will continue for another three months (till June 30),” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said during the last Council meeting.

Currently, tax assessees file only two sets of forms -- GSTR3B (summary form) and GSTR1 (outward supply or goods sold).

GSTR3B is a summary form, which a business is supposed to file before the 20th of the following month. However, a taxpayer does not have to provide invoice level information in the form.

The erstwhile plan of return filing through three key forms—GSTR1 (outward supply), GSTR2 (inward supply) and GSTR3 (the final netted out return)—has been temporarily suspended owing to the complexities in the process.