Just three days more to go for GST, Country's Biggest Tax Reform and the question still prevails- How prepared we all are? How equipped is the Government machinery? What is the status of the Common Online Portal GSTN? In the last GST Council meeting we witnessed that the Online monthly GST return filling has been deferred for slightly more than a month and instead a simplified statement will be required to be uploaded on the common GST Portal. Similarly we also saw that the much hyped and controversial E-Way Bill has also been kept in abeyance till the GSTC comes to consensus. Now the government has deferred implementation of Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax Collection Source (TCS) provisions, as well exempted from registration small businesses selling on e-commerce platform. All these decisions to defer various provisions have come on the last hours. This indicates that the government wants to push GST by 1st July at any cost, including compromising with the core issues which they believe those which we vital for the GST to be successful. On the other had it also gives a hidden message that there is lack of preparedness at all levels including trade , government machinery as well as the much hyped GSTN.
The pressure from the Textile traders throughout the country has also mounted since past few days as panerai replica watches we witness nationwide protests. Throughout we have been hearing that the existing registered person already migrated to GST are around 65 lakhs and just few are remaining out of the total no which is close to 80 lakhs. It is reliably learnt that the Textile sector may contribute more than 50 lakh more assessee under GST which is almost 80 percent of those already shifted to GST. Now it will be interesting to see as to whether the government has enough bandwidth in terms of online system as well as ground staff and Officers in place to give these new GST registrations. There is an online verification process which the jurisdictional proper officer has to carry out and in case he has certain query the same has to be raised with a prescribed time limit. In absence of any such query, the registration will be issued to the person by the system.
Further, with just 3 days to go , the issue related to Dual control is also not resolved. The Admin jurisdiction of the State and Center officers over the trade needs to be finalized and intimated to the respective trade. 90 percent of the things as done at the 11th hour and the same go true for the GST departments too.