Top 10 Amendments Proposed in GST Laws
A whopping 46 amendments have been proposed in the GST Laws. All of these proposed amendments have been targeted to make compliances less cumbersome and to ensure ease of doing business. Comments from the stakeholder has been on invited on the proposal by July 15, 2018. Once the amendments are finalized by the Revenue Dept., they shall be moved to the GST Council for approval and to the legislators for enactment. These proposals are relating to the Supply, Reverse Charge, Composition Scheme, Input Tax credit, returns, etc. The key draft proposals for amendments to the GST Laws are enumerated below:
| 1. | Changes in Reverse Charge As per Section 9(4),a registered person is liable to pay GST under reverse charge on goods or services purchased from unregistered supplier. However, this provision has deferred till September 30, 2018. It has been proposed that only notified registered persons should be liable to pay GST under reverse charge mechanism to benefit the small and medium enterprises. |
| 2. | Changes in composition scheme Presently, registered persons engaged in the supply of services (other than restaurant services)are not eligible for the composition scheme. Thus, manufacturers or traders couldn’t opt for the scheme if they are engaged in supply of allied services even if they are negligible. Therefore, it has been proposed that composition scheme should be allowed even if proportion of ‘Service’ is upto 10% of total turnover in the preceding financial year or Rs. 5 lakhs, whichever is higher. |
| 3. | Changes in Input Tax Credit Changes in negative list of input tax credit has been proposed. It is proposed that input tax credit should be allowed for the taxes paid on following: |
| a) Supply of food, transport and insurance provided to employees if it is obligatory for the employer. | |
| b) Purchase of motor vehicle if it used for transportation of money for or by a banking company or a financial institution. | |
| 4. | Changes in TCS provsions It is proposed that ane-Commerce operator, who is not required to collect TCS, should be exempted from taking compulsory GST registration. In that case, the registration should be obtained only if other conditions are fulfilled, inter-alia, turnover exceeding the threshold limit, inter-State supply, etc. |
| 5. | Consolidated credit or debit note At present, a credit or debit note can be issued only against its underlying invoice, which is quite cumbersome to correlate. Thus, it is proposed that parties should be allowed to issue consolidated credit or debit note to reduce the compliance burden for taxpayers. |
| 6. | Amendment in GST Return Allow the taxpayers to amend the GST returns. This provision would enable the taxpayers to correct inadvertent mistakes by filing an amendment return. |
| 7. | Audit of Central or State Govt. or Local Authority Any department of the Central or State Govt. or Local Authority which is subject to audit by CAG should not be required to get their books of account audited by any Chartered Accountant or Cost Accountant irrespective of prescribed limit of Rs. 2 Crores. |
| 8. | Changes in Registration As per the existing provisions, a person seeking registration shall be granted a single registration in a State or Union territory. However, if he has multiple business verticals in a State or Union territory, he may obtain separate registration for each business vertical. Now, it has been proposed that such persons should be allowed to obtain separate registration for his each place of business in a State or Union territory. |
| 9. | Changes in GST registration Cancellation Once a registered person has applied for cancellation of GST registration, the proper officer should temporarily suspend its registration till the procedural formalities for cancellation are completed. This amendment would relieve the compliance burden of taxpayers. |
| 10. | GST on Import of Goods In case of import of goods, by virtue of Circular No. 3/1/2018-IGST, Dated May 25, 2018, IGST would be payable only at the time of clearance of goods from Custom bonded warehouse for home consumption. This deferment of levy of GST is done so as to avoid the double taxation. It has been proposed that such situations should be mentioned as ‘No Supply’ in Schedule III of the CGST Act, 2017 itself. |