Aiming simplified, sorted practices, FinMin hails spot responses to new GST Returns on 'GST Stakeholder Feedback Diwas' today

New Delhi, December 07: Focussing over assessing the ease of compliance and uploading of the new GST returns for the trade to not face any difficulty after the returns are made legally mandatory, the Central GST and State GST authorities have organized a nationwide GST Stakeholder Feedback Diwas on December 7. "This is for getting an on the spot response to the new GST Returns to be introduced from 1st April 2020", the statement read.

 

 

While the feedback sessions are to be attended by all prominent chambers of commerce and industry and other organisations representing taxpayers and tax practitioners and compliance managers, the tax officers shall be available to hand hold the taxpayers and assist them in trying out the new returns. This is the first time after introduction of GST that taxpayer consultation is being done on such a large scale.

 

On November 16, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had invited some GST taxpayers, Chartered Accountants and Tax practitioners to assess first-hand the response to the various GST returns especially the new Returns to be introduced w.e.f. 1st April 2020.

This initiative by the Finance Minister was widely welcomed by the entire tax fraternity and hailed as a step in the right direction for greater transparency in tax administration. Accordingly, Sitharaman decided that such interaction with stakeholders should be replicated nationwide on December 7 to get a much larger feedback on the new return system.

 

The introduction of GST has proved to be a game changer for Indian economy as it replaced multi-layered, complex indirect tax structure with a simple, transparent and technology–driven tax regime. It integrated India into a single, common market by breaking barriers to inter-State trade and commerce.

 

It merged seventeen different laws and created single taxation, with this new system the days of filing multiple returns, entertaining multiple inspectors and additionally facing the inefficiency - trucks being stranded at the State boundaries for days altogether, vanished. In the pre-GST regime, the rich and the poor, on various commodities, paid the same tax. The multiple slab system not only checked inflation, it also ensured that the Aam Aadmi products are not exorbitantly taxed.