GSTN prioritises 38 issues, 10 take backstage

The group of ministers (GoM), established to address issues in Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), has prioritised 38 issues within GSTN to address.  

According to an official, 10 glitches engulfing GSTN were emancipating out of GSTR 2, whose matching has been delayed owing to the mismatches with GSTR 1. Lot of traders and state governments had complained to the GST Council on the issue.

The addressing of these 10 issues has been delayed. Out of remaining 38 issues, 27 of them have been addressed and are being continuously monitored.  Although head of GoM and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister, Sushil Kumar Modi didn't commit on the deadline to sort out the remaining issues, it is learnt that GoM has told Infosys to sort out 12 issues by December end.    

One of the issues that has resurfaced is regarding unlocking and editing of the summary GSTR 3B forms. The issue has impacted close to 2 lakh traders till now. The GoM has asked Infosys to address the issue immediately and the same is expected to be sorted by November 21, 2017.

Earlier, for July, there were about 4 lakh traders who had filed their returns wrongly and were unable to edit them.

The GoM is understood to have asked Infosys to ensure they make the editing, downloading and previewing of the forms on the  GSTN, which has been missing in vast number of the cases.

The GSTN has also escalated the issue with Infosys, as GoM met Infosys co-founder and Chairman Nandan Nilekani on the issues. "Since Nilekani is in the city, we thought of meeting him and discuss the issues with him," Modi said.

Meanwhile, the government, which had pegged taxes to grow by 14% in the current fiscal is likely to miss the target. Last year the government had collected Rs 8.8 lakh crore from all the taxes that have come under the umbrella of GST now. The government was hoping to take the number to Rs 11 lakh crore this year, or Rs 96,000 crore every month.

However, since the roll out of GST on July 1, the government has been missing on the target. Although there has been a rise in the GST revenue for September to Rs 95,131 crore, yet it is below the Rs 96,000 crore-mark for the third consecutive month.