A month and a half into a new indirect tax system from July 1, the chairman of the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN)—the information technology (IT) backbone and portal for real-time taxpayer registration, migration and tax return filing under GST—Navin Kumar retires on August 29.
Kumar, the first ever GSTN chairman, a Bihar cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer superannuated in 2012 after working for 37 years across various positions in the Centre as well as the states. He has worked in sectors including urban development, education, social security, energy, IT and finance and retired as the Chief Secretary of Bihar.
Kumar was appointed as Chairman, GSTN in May 17, 2013 for three years, after which his term was extended, with the condition that he would remain in office till he turns 65.
While a search committee for a new GST Chairman comprising senior officials from department of revenue, has been set up, sources in know of the matter told Moneycontrol that at a time as crucial as this, Kumar's tenure may get extended again for six months to a year.
One of the key officials responsible for Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation, Kumar has been associated with GSTN almost since its inception. He has been the man behind the readiness of the portal, at a time when the industry bodies and traders were apprehensive and confused about the transition into a new indirect tax regime.
They had requested the government to postpone the rollout date to enable glitch-free filing of returns, minimise erroneous entries, adapt their system to the new compliance requirements and the get accustomed to the GST Network (GSTN).
The presence and the leadership of Kumar is crucial at a time so close to the 'complex' GST return filing dates. In June, GST Council headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley decided to extend the deadline for return filing by more than a month to ease taxpayers’ anxieties.The earlier rules required taxpayers to file returns for onward and inward supplies by the 10th and the 15th of every month.
Form GSTR-1 (outward supplies) for July will now have to be filed between September 1 and September 5. For the month of August, it needs to be filed between September 16 and September 20. Details of form GSTR-2 (inward supplies) for July will have to be filed between September 6 and September 10 between September 21 and 25 for August.
The deadline for another crucial form GSTR 3B for July has to be filed by August 20, while that of July's GSTR 3 is between September 11 and 15.
Under GST, taxpayers are required to file returns on “onward supplies” (goods sold or services provided) and “inward supplies” (goods or services bought). These returns are necessary for seamless implementation of the input tax credit system.
Input credit means at the time of paying tax on output, a producer, trader or service provider can reduce the tax already paid on inputs.
GSTN is equipped to handle 2.6 billion transactions every month from 87 lakh GST tax payers. It can scale up to handle double the volume (5.2 billion transactions a month) and upto 13 million tax payers, without any change.
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