Challan Correction Mechanism:
123. In view of the presumptions listed above, the requirement of providing for a challan correction mechanism would be minimal though not completely ruled out. The Committee recommends for providing the correction mechanism in following situations:-
a) ERROR IN GSTIN: This may happen in situations where the payment of tax is being made by either authorized representative such as CA or any other person on behalf of the taxpayer. Such kind of error will have no impact on the transfer of the funds to the account of the concerned governments as the money will be correctly transferred on the basis of the CIN. Further once the payment confirmation is received by GSTN from the concerned bank then the amount will be credited to the ledger of the taxpayer whose GSTIN is mentioned in the electronic string that is relayed by the bank to GSTN (earlier the same GSTIN was communicated by GSTN to bank). Therefore taking into account both the above factors as well as the fact that Challan has been generated either by the taxpayer himself or through his authorized representative and the mistake being committed has no impact on the funds with tax administration, there is no need for providing an error correction mechanism for the same. The authorized representative, acting as an agent for the taxpayer should be responsible to the principal for any error committed while performing authorized acts and tax administration should have no role to play in this matter.
b) ERROR IN MAJOR HEAD: In such a scenario, the bank though has collected the correct amount but has credited the wrong head of tax account. This would impact the transfer of funds to the account of the respective governments as bank has transferred the funds on the basis of the data not detailed in CPIN. Thus bank would be required to withdraw funds from one account and credit the other account(s). It is proposed to permit banks to rectify such error before the end of the day during which the amount has been received by the bank as at the end of the day, the amount would have been credited in respective government accounts and thereafter the same would also have been accounted by Accounting Authorities of the Centre and State. No correction in the challan data is required even in this case. If the error is noted after reporting of the credit on T+1 basis, the normal MOE process should be used.
c) ERROR IN TOTAL AMOUNT: If the amount paid is in excess then there is provision for either claim of refund by the taxpayer or the amount can be carried forward to the next period and therefore there is no need to provide for correction mechanism.
124. In view of recommended maintenance of cash ledger, the fields relating to ‘Tax period’ and ‘purpose’ will not be captured in the challan as being done presently and therefore correction mechanism for correcting these two fields has not been provided for.
