The government on Saturday extended the deadline to file Goods and Services Tax by five days to August 25, hours after some taxpayers faced technical glitches while accessing the portal for filing the Form GSTR-3B return.
Press Note : Last date for payment of GST and filing of return for July 2017 extended by 5 days #GSTInformation pic.twitter.com/6iM1ofF7LZ
A number of taxpayers took to social media on Saturday afternoon to complain that the government's online portal for the Goods and Services Tax was inaccessible, and they were unable to file the Form GSTR-3B return.
A ticker scroll running on the portal's home page as of Saturday evening acknowledges the delays faced and reads:
We are experiencing slowness and are working to improve the response. Please bear with us.gst.gov.inBloombergQuint spoke with L Badri Naraynan, partner at law firm Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan, on this development. Edited excerpts:
What was today's GST filing deadline about and who does it apply to?
The original deadline for filing a return called GSTR-3B was August 20. As that date is a Sunday, many taxpayers sought to upload their returns today - Saturday. The government has now extended this deadline to August 25. This return reports the consolidated output and input supplies for the month of July and allows the taxpayer to pay his net GST liability for the last month. This is a simplified return for the first month.
Are taxpayers experiencing trouble in accessing GSTN? Is it specific to certain groups/situations?
This is the first time GSTN site is being used to upload return and the corresponding data. Many people have been able to upload the data on the system. Some have been having trouble logging into the system towards the second half of the day. Another issue some people are facing is that there is no option for revising the data in the GSTR-3B if they have made some mistake in the form. Once submitted there is no revision possible.
What does this say about GSTN robustness?
GSTN caters to a very large group of taxpayers and today almost everyone logged in to upload the information simultaneously. There have been issues with GSTN but in terms of the IT investment and the feedback from today's experience, I do expect GSTN to become responsive and robust in the coming months.
Based on the GSTN experience so far how do you assess the preparedness of GSTN for the September filing deadlines?
September filings are going to face problems since thesystem is new and the data that will be uploaded is going to be enormous. InSeptember, the taxpayer would need to report GSTR-1,2 and 3. GSTR-1 is an invoice-level, line-time reporting of all of your output supplies (allsales). Then GSTR-2 reports all input supplies (purchases) at line-itemlevel. GSTR-3 is the final return which calculates the next tax liability(output tax minus input tax) to be paid to the Department. GSTR-3B onlysummarizes GSTR-3 for ease. However, next month the data that would needto be reported would be comprehensive. In addition, in the month ofSeptember, this has to be done twice – once for the month of July (sinceGSTR-3B is only a summary return) and once of the month of August. So the datathat would get uploaded in September will be twice the normal workload.
There are bound to be problems in the GSTN system.What are you advising clients to do to be able to successfully file GST returns on time?
I would recommend getting your data in place as early as possible before everyone tries to upload the data on the last days. Using a GSP/ASP would certainly help the process. GSTR-3B upload was not through a GSP and hence the issues that taxpayers faced are likely to be higher. Many companies are still trying to assess whether they need a GSP or not. Better connectivity to the GSTN would certainly help ease the process.
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