The Goods and Services Tax Suvidha Providers (GSPs) have asked the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) and the Department of Revenue to postpone the date of filing returns under the new indirect tax regime by a month to September 10, even if GST itself is rolled out on July 1.
The GSTN held a review meeting with all 34 GSPs on Friday in which it began releasing the specifications for various tax return forms needed under the GST, according to a Finance Ministry statement.
“A Revenue Department official was also present at the meeting,” a GSP head, who attended the meeting, told The Hindu on condition of anonymity. “There was a consensus demand from all the GSPs that the government extend the first date of filing returns to September 10 from August 10. That way, we will get time to test our systems properly.”
Several GSPs have spoken about how the lack of preparation, on the part of the government and the GSPs, as the GST rules are concerned, could mean that the rollout of the entire system of GSPs could be pushed back by a few months.
“There are two aspects to the rollout,” said another GSP executive who didn’t want to be identified. “The first is the actual implementation of the tax. This is independent of the GSTN. The second is the filing of returns, the first date of which is August 10. The release date of the specifications make August 10 doable, but extremely difficult. It puts pressure, but can be done.”
“The specifications for GSTR 1, 2, and 3 were to be released on June 9,” one source who attendedthe meeting told The Hindu . “On June 20, the API (application programme interface) specifications for some of GSTR 1 aspects will be released. On June 29, the live API for GSTR 1 will be released and on July 20, the live APIs for some of the GSTR 1 forms will be released. The GSTR 6 and GSTR 8 live APIs will be released on August 1, and the release of GSTR 3 live APIs will be on August 16.”
Cybersecurity audit
The GSPs were also asked to get cybersecurity audits done for their IT systems before they started feeding taxpayers’ data into their systems.
“The GSPs were told that they must have their systems audited as per the prevailing ISO standard on security from one of the auditors on the panel of CERT-IN before they connect with and start pushing data into the GST system,” the statement added.
“Most GSPs already have robust IT systems in place, but one can see why these audits are necessary for security purposes, especially to ease the minds of the citizens since there is so much hacking related news in the media,” another GSP manager said. “However, the bald fact is that these audits will take time and only adds to the things we have to complete in order to be truly ready.”
The government also made sure to specify that taxpayers did not need to only use GSPs to file their returns, explaining that there were other options they could use in the event that the GSPs were not up and running by August 10.
“Taxpayers using offline tool will not require services of any GSP,” the finance ministry statement said. “Similarly, those having small number of business-to-business invoices, like retailers and small traders, can do the data entry on portal itself and they will also not require the services of GSPs.”
