The National Action Committee of Goods and Services Tax ( GST ) Practitioners asked the Government to extend the due date to March 31, 2019, for filing GST Returns as it seems difficult to achieve the deadline of 31st December 2018.
The practitioner’s body said that to ensure quality work and proper, correct compliance, the extension is needed.
The committee further said that compliance under GST law should be made simple and transparent which would ease compliances, cut or control the cost of compliance and create a sense of ease of doing business.
There were teething problems which the central and state governments were supposed to be sorted out, the committee pointed out.
It said that after sixteen months of GST rollout, it is necessary that the government and the public at large get an idea of the problems faced by key stakeholders- taxpayers and tax practitioners.
They further complained about the issues on the slow server of the GST Network (GSTN), refunds to be made in 20 days, the filing of returns, deadlines for filing returns should not overlap, annual returns is to be filed within nine months after completion of any financial year.
The committee suggested that there should be clarity in the filing of returns, utilities should be available well in advance, payment through credit and debit cards as well as the real-time gross settlement (RTGS) should be seamless and secrecy of data and privacy of businesses should be ensured.
