Meeting customer expectations biggest challenge: GSTN CEO
Taxpayers have complained of various glitches including lack of forms, inability to rectify errors, bugs in the software and inaccessibility of the site
Meeting taxpayers’ expectations and ensuring glitch-free return filing have been GST Network’s (GSTN’s) biggest challenges, its CEO Prakash Kumar said, responding to criticism about the portal’s under preparedness to implement a country-wide goods and services tax (GST).
“That (meeting taxpayer’s expectations) is what our job is and need to make sure that we come up to that expectation,” Kumar told Moneycontrol.
Taxpayers have complained of various glitches including lack of forms, inability to rectify errors, bugs in the software and in many cases, the site was not accessible.
Kumar and his team are now working towards enhancing certain aspects in the system.
In the last meeting on September 9, the GST Council headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley formed a state finance ministers’ panel to look into the problems traders and taxpayers are facing in using the GSTN portal, the information technology (I-T) backbone of the new tax system.
Industry bodies and traders have repeatedly sought more time to enable glitch-free filing of returns, minimise erroneous entries and the get accustomed to the GSTN.
GSTN is a portal-driven IT backbone created to enable real-time taxpayer registration, filing returns, handle invoices, execute inter-state tax settlements, and connect states for two-way data flow.
Its readiness has come under question, with many states complaining about its under-preparedness.
GSTN’s smooth function is essential for a steady rollout of the new tax system and a string of snags have forced the government extended the deadline for filing various tax returns more than once.
“Improvement is a constant function. Improvement on the portal is done for two things--for user friendliness any bug that slows down the software,” he said.
For instance, a preview for submission of the input-output summary form GSTR3B wasn’t available, for first few days.
“People wanted preview before they submit the form. So we provided it on the fifth (day). It was a huge relief for the people (taxpayers),” he said.
Similarly, businesses have complained that some key forms are not available on the portal. From next week, an entity can choose to opt out from the small tax payers’ plan—composition scheme.
Composition scheme is an alternate method of taxation, which allows small businesses with annual turnover up to Rs 75 lakhs, to pay tax at a concessional rate, as well as reduce the compliance cost.
“An opt-out option (from the composition scheme) will be available from next week if an entity decides it wants to become a normal taxpayer,” Kumar explained.
Another key form pertaining to cancellation of registration will be introduced around October 20.
Under GST, if a person decides to exit or wrap up the business, then the registration has to be necessarily cancelled.
“An entire workflow needs to be prepared to ready the cancellation form for someone who has decided to close the business,” Kumar said.
“There is a complete workflow. The cancellation request will be forwarded to the tax officer. He will then look at the data, raise a query, review forms, purchases, among others. The officer has to draft an order and the order has to be delivered. That’s why it takes time,” he said.
