I felt there is need to review the GST process in the GST website due to various issues cropping up. The issues can be segregated into Legal and Technical.
Legal being the issues which require the GST Council to recommend and the Govt to act. The Technical issues being the ones which needs the change to be approved by the respective process owners. Though this looks very simple, the issue is that most of the issues we face today are both Legal as well as Technical.
I will be updating my blogs by taking up 1 issue at a time along with my views and workarounds.
Lets discuss the issues one by one.
1. The Site : gst.gov.in
Lots and lots of efforts have gone in creating this application. (The front end what we get to see is the webpage). However due to high traffic the site is slow at times. We, the taxpayers & Professionals use the site for variety of reasons viz
a. New Registrations
b. Checking the Status of the Application
c. Filing of returns
d. Checking the correctness of the GSTN provided to us by a third party
e. Composition Scheme check
etc.
Since the site can have only limited number of users at any given point of time, it is required that only core activities are performed in the main application and all other things which can be done offline should be done through utilities provided. (Ex. GSTR1 is prepared through a offline utility.)
New Registrations
However the most time consuming activity in GSTN site is with respect people who use the DSC for the first time. There is no proper faqs made available neither in GSTN site nor in the emudra site. It would have been better if GSTN followed the income tax efiling DSC methodology. In Income tax website, the DSC is affixed to the file that is being uploaded through an Offline utility and then the same is compared with the DSC when the file is uploaded.
Filing of Returns
Similarly the GST Registration also could have been done away through a offline utility and once uploaded the necessary validations can be done and either processed or rejected.
Off late we have been facing the issue of website reaching the maximum users limit due to the GSTR3B and challan creations. I have a feeling that GSTN might be rolling out the offline utility for GSTR3B soon due to the fact that the 3B has to be filed for another 4 months. (ie Sep to Dec).
Checking the correctness of the GSTN
The correctness of the GST No is of two parts.
1. The PAN and the Checksum of the GSTN are intact.
2. The above GSTN is actually available in the GST. ie the registration has been done.
To explain it further, the 15 digit GSTN consists of 2 digit state code, 10 digit PAN and 3 digits. Out of last 3 digits the first digit denotes the serial nu of the registration in the same PAN in the same State (currently from 1 to 9). The second digit is currently common with Z for all. The last digit is a check sum which is basis all other 14 digits.
Thus if all the first 14 digits are correct then we will be able to find the exact 15th digit and verify the same. However if the state code or pan is incorrect the check sum will be wrong there by the GSTN being incorrect. However CA Adarsh Madrecha has developed a excel file wherein you can verify the available GSTN OFFLINE. The link for the file and site is given in the end of this section. This file of CA Adarsh Madrecha is big boon for professionals at the time of filing of returns.
Composition Scheme
There are lot of issues with respect to the scheme which i will discuss in the next update.
Website of CA Adarsh Madrecha - Click here
Offline tool of CA Adarsh Madrecha - Download Excel File
Thanks,
CA Thangavel M
Comments