Problems galore even after two months of GST

 The Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll out completes two months on Thursday but certain issues are still troubling the common man and traders. Most of them relate to the GST portal where a trader files tax returns but the knottiest still appears to be the highest tax slab of 28% which has led to a lot of confusion.

A premier traders’ body the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has been vociferously demanding a re-visit to the goods put in top 28% slab which was meant for luxury and sin goods but includes most basic items of consumption.

The meeting of all-powerful GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and his state counterparts, will be held in Hyderabad on September 9, in which it is expected to take a call on rate anomalies. “Among other things we expect a re-look in 28% rate structure which applies to most common items. There are more than 200 items in that bracket. Why should Bournvita or Horlicks be taxed as luxury goods. This slab has become a root cause of unrest among a section of the traders,” CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal told DH.

Traders also complained about some teething problems in GST portal.
“The portal always shows error when it is logged in. Even after it is logged, the forms are not being downloaded. In most cases, it is utterly slow,” Chartered Accountant Rajesh Tandon said. He found major confusion in the areas of charity, which he said was very vaguely defined and was still subject to tax under GST. In cases of foreign trade, there is a lot of confusion on refunds which appear to be never landing in accounts of traders.

Traders also complained of refunds due to complex codes in billing systems.

“The government has prescribed a code for each item under different verticles. Every item has a code and there are identical codes for many items. Now the problem is if a supplier enters a particular code and his trader enters a different one for the same item, there will be no match between what is sold and what is purchased. Neither of them will get tax credit,” according to Khandelwal.

The last date for filing GSTR 3B was August 28, but according to the government, only 36 lakh traders could file that. There are actually 87 lakh registered traders who need to file the GSTR forms every month.

The government has, however, said that the teething problems will remain for sometime till the traders get used to the new mechanism.