Exporters have raised their concerns regarding changes in GST rules as they believe that these changes will give more powers to departmental officers; they now feel it has set alarm bells ringing for assesses, and should be now extremely cautious while doing GST compliances.
The major changes notified by the GST Council included increase in time limit for system-based GST registration from 3 to 7 days.
Besides, now there are more powers to GST department in cancellation of GSTIN; restriction on claim of ITC as per Rule 36(4) has now been made as 5 per cent of the credit available in GSTR 2B; GSTR 1 to be blocked in case of non-filing of GSTR 3B, wherein if a taxpayer fails to file GSTR 3B for 2 subsequent months, his GSTR 1 shall now be blocked.
Also, a taxpayer who is restricted to avail ITC as per Rule 86B shall also not be permitted to file GSTR 1 where he has not filed GSTR 3B for the preceding tax period. There will also be restriction on utilisation of input tax credit – Rule 86B and narrowing the validity of e-way bill.
Unhappy with the changes, Ravi K. Passi, Chairman, Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), said that a lot of restrictions have been imposed on assesses, particularly, input tax credit can only be availed if it is appearing in form GSTR 2A, input tax can be blocked if GST officer has reason to believe that assesse has wrongly availed credit and GST registration can be cancelled by the department if any activity is found suspicious.
He further said that these changes need a relook and assesses intent to comply with GST rules and the interest of all genuine assesses should be kept in mind as GST compliance is a way forward and after three years of GST implementation, there is a widespread understanding and acceptability of the system amongst exporters.
On the other hand, the Government has said that GST Council notifies various measures to curb fake dealers and invoice rackets.
