The Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to look into the technical issues faced by Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), headed by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, is hopeful of resolving 80% of the problems in filing tax returns by October 30.
The GoM held its first meeting here on Saturday and discussed the technical issues faced by GSTN with top executives of the IT major Infosys that has developed and built the IT system for new tax regime.
After the two-hour meeting, Mr. Modi not only told presspersons that efforts were being made to solve 80% of glitches in the GSTN by October 30, but the GoM would hold meetings every 15 days. The next meeting would be held again in Bengaluru in the first or second week of next month.
The meeting assumed significance since GSTN, the information technology (IT) backbone and portal for real-time taxpayer registration, migration, and tax return filing under GST, had run into a technical snag. “All decisions taken today, the timeline, and implementation of problems, will be discussed again in the next meeting,” said Mr. Modi. “We are charting unknown territory so during initial days there are a few glitches,” said Mr. Modi, who was Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar when the Value Added Tax (VAT) was implemented in 2005.
Nearly 80 officials of commercial tax departments in different States held marathon meetings on Friday, with all stakeholders such as dealers, tax consultants, and software experts to understand numerous challenges faced by the network.
A total of 23.18 lakh new dealers have registered under the GST. A total 85 lakh dealers, including migration of 62.25 lakh dealers under VAT, have registered under the GST. Filing of returns on the last days of the month caused technical glitches, he said.
Mr. Modi appealed to dealers to file their tax returns in advance to avoid last-minute rush. “Owing to a huge rush of GSTR-3B return filing on the penultimate date of the month, the GSTN software witnessed glitches,” Mr. Modi said.
“There is a general tendency that people file their returns on the last day. Because of that there is heavy rush in the system.” Though only five days are left (including today) for filing reruns for the month of August, only 3.05 lakh dealers have filed their 3B returns against 46 lakh dealers who filed their returns in July, he said.
Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Kerala Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, Telangana Finance Minister Etela Rajender, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey, and GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar, attended the meeting.