The GST Council met today and announced a newer and simplified return filing process. A period of six months has been given to the GSTN to gear themselves up for the change to the simplified system. The change itself promises to help make the tax-paying process smoother.

“It will take about six months for GSTN to prepare for it, so for that period the current arrangement of GSTR3B and GSTR 1 will continue. This will be the first phase of transition where the current system will continue for the next six months,” said Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia. 

The new system, according to Adhia, will take six months to have a single system of return for every taxpayer. “Composition dealer and zero transaction dealers will continue to file on a quarterly basis. Today, we find that the returns which are filed, 30% are nil returns, which means there is no transaction on them,” Adhia said. 

For B2B companies, sales invoice details with dealers will be required while for B2C companies, the system will also have turnover details. For the B2B companies, invoice-wise details with HSN codes will be a requirement.

The period of transition will have some special measures after six months of the return being prepared. Dealers will be able to claim provisional credit based on their own calculations. “This will continue for a period of six months and this will be the second phase of transition, which means during this period we will allow provisional credit to be carried by the dealer irrespective of whether the seller from who he has bought the goods has uploaded the invoice,” said Adhia. 

The Finance Secretary explained that during the next 6 months the GSTN will take the initiative in keeping the individual tax payer informed about the gap between what is claimed as credit and what the Government gives back based on the invoices of the seller. “That gap percentage will be known to the taxpayer and he would get time of six month to bring it down,” said Adhia. 

There will be a third phase which will start in April 2019 that will see consistent month-by-month invoice matching. The time for transition allows both the taxpayer and the Government to ease into the new system. The last phase would require a high level of compliance and should work well given the right ecosystem which India is now arguably approaching.

Key details

• One monthly return- All taxpayers, with a few exceptions including composition dealers, will file taxes monthly. Return filing dates will be staggered depending on the turnover of each person to help manage the load on the IT system and keep the GST process running smoothly.

• Unidirectional flow of invoices- Buyer can avail input tax credit based on a unidirectional flow of invoices by the seller. 

• Simple return design- B2B dealers will have to have invoice-wise details of all the supply they send out. This information will be used to calculate their tax liability. The input tax credit will be calculated based on invoices by his sellers. 

• Due process for recovery and reversal- Notice and order process will be required for recovery of ta or reversal of input tax credit. This will be largely automated.

• Supplier side control- A seller who has defaulted on taxes above a threshold amount will be blocked from uploading invoices to mitigate false use of input credit tax facility. Analytical tools will be deployed by GSTN to help with this.