- Next phase of reforms discussed in GST Council
- Emphasis on invoice matching with ease of registration
- A proposal to limit the intervention of authorities
The 57th GST Council meeting began in Delhi on Thursday under the chairmanship of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. In this meeting, the next phase of GST reforms proposed by the government is being discussed. These reforms are likely to make the refund, GST registration and return filing process easier for taxpayers.
Chief Ministers of Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Meghalaya are present in this meeting. Besides, Deputy Chief Ministers of Manipur and Telangana, Finance Ministers of various states and Union Territories, senior officials, Secretary of Revenue Department, Chairman and Members of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance have also participated.
Refund process will be discussed
According to sources, the GST reform proposals include speeding up the refund process, simplifying GST registration for companies and promoting faith-based governance by bringing many tax-related offenses out of the ambit of criminal provisions.
The proposals focus on five key areas namely procedural reforms, structural reforms, ease of doing business, e-commerce and export of services. Procedural reforms propose accepting refund applications within 10 days. The plan is to arrange for issuance of 90 per cent refunds based on risk assessment after automatic receipt of necessary information from customs and banking systems. This is expected to make doing business easier.
It is also proposed to lay down uniform criteria for notices, hearings and orders in cases of tax disputes. Also, consideration is being given to the provision of non-issue of notice in cases of amount less than certain limit.
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Change in GST return process too?
Changes are also proposed in the process of filing GST returns. It is proposed to make the 'invoice matching' system more effective so that a complete record of the amendments made by the taxpayers is available and the corresponding changes are automatically recorded in the purchaser's ledger. Hence input tax credit can be verified at the stage of registration itself and the need to issue mismatch notices on a large scale can be reduced.
Meanwhile, it was said that currently 61 percent taxpayers are getting GST registration within three working days without the approval of the officer. It is also proposed to simplify the process for the rest of the taxpayers. Hence, efforts will be made to reduce the incidence of unnecessary queries and rejection of registration applications.
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It is also proposed to make the process of closing a business as easy as starting a business. It is envisaged to provide for automatic reinstatement of GST registration certificates suspended due to procedural errors without any intervention of the officer after the relevant errors are rectified.
Sources said that the main objective of the reforms is that the tasks that can be done automatically by the system on the basis of data, should be done by the system itself and the intervention of the authorities should be limited only to cases requiring human judgment and discretion.