The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi likely to discuss about simplification of return filing process under the goods and services tax ( GST ). For this, the GoM will hold consultations with stakeholders, reports said.
On Monday, Modi had chaired a meeting on the implementation of reverse charge mechanism in Delhi.
Nandan Nilekani, the non-executive chairman of the Infosys that is implementing the GST Network (GSTN), is also likely to attend the meeting. About 40 industry and trade bodies are likely to participate in the meeting, sources said.
The GoM will also consult tax experts on how to simplify the return filing, sources added.
The GoM will consider the possibility of merging multiple tax returns. GSTR-1, 2 and 3 will be merged. Currently, the businesses file GSTR -1 and 3B for sales return and summary return, respectively. The last meeting of the GST Counci had decided to continue the current system till 30 June.
The GoM is also likely to consider a proposal for allowing return filing only twice a year for businesses having zero tax liability for six months in a row, sources said.
The government is also working on to bring the invoice matching process in a simpler format. It is mulling bringing back the suspended invoice matching following the concerns over tax evasion.
Nilekani has suggested that the buyer should be allowed to claim ITC on basis of the invoices uploaded by the supplier so that the seller can upload the invoice and buyer will acknowledge it.
On the other hand, the tax administrators feel that “both the supplier as well as the buyer should upload the invoices before the ITC is claimed by the buyer. This way, the buyer will not be totally dependent on the supplier. Sometimes, the supplier may miss out on some invoices,” sources in the finance ministry said.
Reports also suggested that before simplifying the forms, a consensus has to be built on a host of issues ranging from invoice matching, provisional input tax credit (ITC) and reverse charge mechanism (RCM).
