Centre approaches Supreme Court for additional 30 days to open GST Transitional Credit Window from October till December

The Finance Ministry has petitioned the Supreme Court for permission to extend the deadline for opening a special window for filing transitional credit claims by 30 days because it believes GSTN has a limited amount of time to make changes to the portal that will make filing easier.

The Supreme Court has ordered to open the GST system, enabling taxpayers under the GST regime to claim transitional credit for two months beginning on September 1st and ending on October 31st. This is a significant relief for taxpayers under the GST regime.

The portal for filing all tax credit claims and reports is run by GSTN, the organisation that manages GST’s IT backbone. When we talk about transitional credit, we’re talking about how to use tax credits that have been accrued up until June 30, 2017, which is the final day of the previous central excise and service tax regime. A unique provision was developed once the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented to allow credit accumulated under the VAT, excise tax, or service tax to be transitioned to the GST, but only within a specific timeframe.

Now, the application filed with the Apex Court aims to keep the facility open from October through December for 90 days. The application also lists technical factors and challenges with system modifications brought on by the filing of monthly returns. According to the application, the government wants to avoid giving taxpayers a hard time and ensure that the portal runs without interfering with regular return filing procedures. In the past, different High Courts have made similar statements and ordered the government to open the portal.