The GST Department has started sending notices to the Companies asking them to explain the reason for “discrepancies” in return GSTR-3B and GSTR-1.
GST officers have started sending scrutiny notices to companies whose tax payment did not match the final sales return, after revenue authorities detected underpayment of GST by about 34 per cent, a source said.
Also, scrutiny notices are sent to companies whose final sales return GSTR-1 did not match GSTR-2A, which is a purchase return auto-generated by system from his seller’s return.
As per an analysis done by the revenue department in March, 34 per cent of businesses paid Rs 34,400 crore less tax between July-December while filing initial summary return (GSTR-3B).
These 34 per cent of the businesses have paid Rs 8.16 lakh crore to the exchequer by filing GSTR-3B, whereas analysis of their GSTR-1 data show that their tax liability should have been Rs 8.50 lakh crore.
The Gujarat GST commissionerate, last day issued a notice wherein the tax payer was asked to explain the reason for “discrepancies” in return GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 for October-December period by May 14.
“If no explanation is received by the aforesaid date, it will be presumed that you have nothing to say in the matter and proceedings in accordance with law may be initiated against you without making any further reference to you in this regard,” the notice said. Tax experts said that GST law provides for 30 days time to be given to taxpayers for replying to scrutiny notices, however, in the said case only 10 days time has been granted.
GST, the new indirect tax law was rolled out on 1st July last year. However, till January, the revenue numbers were very poor. According to a report in Financial Express, the data analysis showed only 16 per cent of the summary sales returns under GST matched with the final returns till December 2017. It also showed that there was excess tax payment of Rs 91,072 crore by 49.36 per cent of businesses registered under GST between July-December.
