“TO ERR IS HUMAN” “TO KILL IS GST”

[V ALAGAPPAN]

When GST was introduced in July 2017, I travelled all over Tamil Nadu and addressed our Members & Business community under the aegis of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Nothing was clear, Nobody understood what to do? There were lots of unanswered questions. The GST department took 6 full years to understand the law. They also learned what is not possible with the GST portal and started punishing the assessees on those areas where correction is not possible.

While there is no provision/possibility to correct errors /mistakes in GSTR return in India, I find that under Singapore GST errors are allowed to be corrected within five years from the end of relevant GST accounting period.

In Australia GST credits can be claimed within 4 years.

You can claim GST credits up to 4 years in Canada. Large business can claim up to 2 years from the due date for Return.

In India you should claim ITC before 30^th November or date of furnishing Annual Return which ever in earlier. Somebody who is more law abiding and sincere will file GSTR-9 in the April of the following year, and will get just 30 days to claim the missed credit.

This partially explains why people leaving India, do not like to comeback to India. It is cruelty on the businessmen. Being a Businessman in India is a Sin. The Law makers who have drafted section 16 cannot claim that they are unaware the time limit in other countries to claim credit.

If they say they are not aware, they are unfit to draft the law, if they say we know, then they are divine  inhuman.

Further in many situations, there are no mechanism to correct mistakes & errors made in filing the returns.

Dictionary meaning of error is: Error is a mistake, especially one that affects the result of something or causes problems.

Meaning of the word mistake is “an action or an opinion that is not correct, or that produces a result that you did not want”.

The facility to amend an invoice in GSTR-1 was introduced only in Oct 2022. If a person has entered Rs. 1,00,00,000/- instead of 1,00,000.00/- he has to pay Rs.18,00,000/- as tax. For the periods from 01.07.2017 to 31.03.2021 no correction is allowed. He had no option but to pay tax. Limited correction in invoice details are allowed from October 2022 for periods beginning 01.04.2021. This is just a typo of missing decimal.

In the case of M/S EICHER MOTORS LTD, the assessee is inadvertently disclosed same turnover thrice. The same was rectified in GSTR-9.

Further as there is no procedure for “Purchase Return” the assessee raised invoices on the supplier for Return of Goods. In GST, Debit Note/ Credit Note everything can be issued only by supplier and not by the recipient of goods.

The demand was 117 crores and of which 115 crores was not sustainable. But think of the sufferings the company had before getting relief from Madras High court.

Be careful. Check your Return many times engages more qualified professional. This is called ease of doing business in India.

The related issue is Notice Generating Machines purchased by the GST Departments at a cost of 1000’s of cores. They generate lakhs and lakhs of notices every day and send it to the assessee only by placing in the common portal as per section 169 of the CGST Act.

The client having given somebody’s email never gets the Notice. Sometimes Notice contains figures not related to the assessee, and as the assessee had not replied, Tax, Interest & penalty of crores of Rupees Generated and that also posted in the Common Portal. But there after assessee’s Bank accounts attached to make him aware of such orders. The attachment order is also served only on the Bankers. Now it is known to the assessee, and he comes to us for filing appeal normally after 120 days allowed for appeal.

All the High Courts in India were of the opinion that the Commissioner Appeals has no power to admit appeals after 120 days. Now there is Calcutta High Court order giving some relief, until it is stayed / set aside by Honourable Supreme Court.

The assessee should open his account in the common portal every day morning to check whether there is any notice, whether he open his shop or not. Similarly his Auditor must also use some software application to check whether any of his clients have received notice from GST Department. This is the only way to survive till some sense returns to GST Department.