Cuttack: A Goods and Services Tax (GST) Awareness Programme was organised by Social Association for Everyone (SAFE), supported by Cuttack Tax Bar Association in association with GESTURE, on The Cuttack Tax Bar Association campus on Sunday evening.
Since its introduction on July 1, GST, India’s biggest tax reform, has posed some practical issues.
Most of business houses, tax practitioners, accountants, advocates and corporate houses are confused about different aspects of the GST. So, it is crucial to make people, who deal with GST, understand about the new taxation system.
Around 78 lakh assessees of the old indirect tax regime have migrated to the GST Network portal.
Nearly 22 lakh GST returns (for August) were filed by 6 p.m. on Nov. 1 as business enterprises flocked the GSTN portal to submit their returns on the last day for tax filing.
Obviously, the rush for last minute filing was primarily due to the lack of understanding about the new tax system.
There is an urgent need to educate the people concerned about different aspects of GST. There is no such forum to train or clarify the doubts of small and medium businessmen, tax practitioners, accountants, advocates and corporate houses. The common people, mainly small retailers and shopkeepers, are still struggling to get used to the new tax system. The issues are many, such as 1] updating systems to be GST-ready 2] how to file GST return 3] variety of taxes 4] different rates for different locations 5] GST on local goods and 6] creating invoices and filing returns.
For the first time SAFE took up an initiative to educate, clarify, train and awareness common people about the above mentioned issues through the ‘GST Awareness Programme’ on November 5.
On the occasion, Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise and Service Tax, Mr. Sricharan Kutikuppala, clarified doubts on Composite Scheme and its advantages. He also described on RCM (Reverse Charge Mechanism).
“Compliance is going to gradually get better with the reduction of technical glitches,” said Mr. Kutikuppala.
Mr. Chiranjib Das, Joint Director & Head of Tax Research Department, The Institute of Cost Accountants of India, Kolkata, raised many technical issues in GST policy and rules. Mr. Das, who is also an empaneled GST faculty, Indirect Taxation Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, showed different examples of wrong rules in GST and appealed the Govt. of India to rectify those.
“GST supports our national missions like Make in India, Digital India, Skill India and Swachh Bharat. We should share knowledge to create awareness and make GST a success,” said Mr. Das.
Mr Ananda Satpathy, Additional Commissioner, IT and EI, Office of Commercial Tax, interacted with the tax advocates and discussed the problems they are facing in filing of tax under GST.
The tax consultants said that their workload has increased and they are not able to complete work of their clients in the stipulated time due to technical issues related to the GST. Many of them asked Mr. Satpathy how they will get back the fine paid by their clients which the Govt. has waived.
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