While the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime rolled out successfully on July 1, several key aspects such as the e-waybill system, the tax collected at source (TCS) by e-commerce companies, and the dates of filing returns have been delayed.
The government on June 18 decided to push back the date of filing returns for July and August under GST. While the deadline for filing returns for July was earlier August 10, it was deferred to September 5. The deadline for August was moved to September 20 from September 10.
“The decision to delay the date of filing returns suggests that the government itself has realised that the GST Network is itself not ready and that the GST Suvidha Providers also need more time,” Santosh Dalvi, Partner, Indirect Tax at KPMG in India said.
“The issuance of various notifications by the government in the last two days, including the changes in the rates, have given a very limited time for the trade and industry to analyse its implication and make corresponding changes in the IT systems,” Sachin Menon – Partner and Head, Indirect Tax at KPMG in India said.
The e-waybill system, envisaged to provide an electronic way bill for the movement of goods across the country, met with huge opposition from industry players since the rules were considered to be too complicated to implement. Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) chairman Navin Kumar in May said that the e-waybill system would be delayed by at least six months. In June, the GST Council decided to defer the implementation of the system, instead authorising the current waybill system to continue under GST.
Logistics industry
“The GST Council has broadly addressed the concerns of the logistics industry by deferring e-waybills for goods with a value exceeding ₹50,000,” Mahesh Fogla, CFO, Patel Integrated Logistics said.
“This will not only provide the required operational bandwidth to logistics players but will also keep costs within limits.” Under the GST rules, e-commerce companies were to be responsible for deducting and depositing tax at 1% from each transaction. Any dealer or trader selling goods or services online would get the payment after the deduction of tax. The government on June 26 decided to defer this requirement.
“TCS would have a direct impact on the sellers of the marketplace, who are generally small in nature with a turnover in the range of ₹50 lakh to ₹10 crore per annum,” A. Didar Singh, FICCI secretary general said.
“It [TCS] is a significant change which would increase a lot of compliance and administration cost for online aggregators like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon, etc,” Cleartax.com said in a note.
