GST Council may consider modifying the monthly GST payment form

Officials indicated that the GST Council is likely to take into consideration a suggestion for improvements to the GSTR-3B monthly tax payment form, which would include auto-population of outward supplies from sales returns and a non-editable tax payment table.

With this change, the problem of phoney billing—where sellers report reduced sales on GSTR-3B to reduce GST payment but greater sales on GSTR-1 to allow buyers to claim input tax credit (ITC)—would be less of a problem.

Currently, a taxpayer’s GSTR-3B contains automatically generated input tax credit (ITC) statements based on inbound and outbound B2B shipments and also identifies any discrepancies between GSTR-1 and 3B.

According to the modifications suggested by the Law Committee of the GST Council, values from GTSR-1 into GSTR-3B will automatically populate in certain rows to establish a large degree of one-to-one correspondence between rows of the two return forms, providing clarity to the taxpayer and tax officers.

According to a source, the modification will simplify the GSTR-3B filing procedure and reduce the amount of user input required.

According to the revised form suggested by the Law Committee of the Council, the tax payment table in Form GSTR-3B will be auto-populated from other tables in the form and will not be editable.

A separate amendment table (for liabilities) may be introduced in GSTR-3B to provide more clarity to the taxpayers. This will ensure that any changes made to Form GSTR-1 are accurately reflected in GSTR-3B. The Committee noted that, to the extent possible, changes to Form GSTR-3B should follow changes to Form GSTR-1 with regard to outward liabilities.

The Committee recommended that an amendment table be included in GSTR-3B to show any changes made to the ITC section.

The revised form will be made available to the public for stakeholder feedback when the GST Council gives its preliminary approval to the revisions proposed by the Law Committee. The final version will then be approved by the GST Council at a subsequent meeting.

Presently, taxpayers must submit GSTR-1 declarations of outbound supplies by the eleventh day of the next month, and GSTR-3B tax payments must be made between the twentieth and twenty-fourth day of each month, depending on the category of taxpayer.

Rajat Mohan, Senior Partner at AMRG & Associates, commented on the planned revisions to GSTR-3B and stated that tax filings will change for online retailers offering passenger transportation services, lodging services, housekeeping services, and cloud kitchens. Such online retailers would now be required to disclose supplies on behalf of suppliers in separate cells on their GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B forms.

He stated, “E-commerce businesses like Uber, Swiggy, Zomato, and MMT would see minor modifications in monthly tax filings, ensuring more data points for the government system for big data analytics”.

Source: Times of India