GST Council to decide on tax refunds on Friday

Bengaluru, Oct 4 (IANS) The GST Council would decide on the integrated Goods and Services Tax refunds at its next meeting in New Delhi on Friday, its Group of Ministers (GoM) head Sushil Kumar Modi said on Wednesday.

"The GST Council meeting on Friday will take important decisions on integrated GST refund and ease of doing business for small tax payers," Modi told reporters after the second meeting of the GST Network here.

The first meeting of the GoM was held here on September 16.

The Bihar Deputy Chief Minister heads the five-member GoM, set up to look into the technical issues faced by the GST Network and address them in consultation with all stakeholders and its vendor -- global software major Infosys.

"Structural changes in the GST regime will also be deliberated in the upcoming Council meeting with the member states from across the country and will be announced by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley," said Modi.

"Most of the IT-related glitches have been resolved and traders are finding the network easier to file their returns online."

The revamped GSTN, which can handle 80,000 returns in a hour, will be enhanced to process 130,000 returns per hour by this month-end.

About 20 lakh traders who have not filed returns on purchase and sales will be alerted through SMS to file before the last date, which Modi clarified would not be extended.

Infosys, which maintains the portal, will depute its technical personnel to all the states across the country for assisting their officials and tax payers in operating the system.

Besides Modi, other GoM members are Chhattisgarh Minister for Commercial Taxes Amar Agarwal, Karnataka Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, Kerala Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac and Telangana Finance Minister Etela Rajender.

GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey and GSTN Chief Executive Officer Prakash Kumar assist the GoM in addressing the technical glitches, which have affected filing of returns by the traders since the new indirect tax regime was launched on July 1.

The decision to form the GoM was taken at the last meeting of the GST Council in Hyderabad on September 9 after several member states complained to Jaitley, who heads the Council, that the glitches were causing problems for taxpayers in filing returns and making payments.

Since July 1, over 23,18,000 new traders registered for the GST, with 11 lakh dealers under the composition scheme, taking the total number to over 85 lakh, including 62.25 lakh traders who migrated from the old VAT and service tax regime.

Under the composition scheme, traders or dealers with less than Rs 75 lakh annual turnover have to file their quarterly returns though they will not tax their consumers.