User-Friendly Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN)
Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) has sought the views of the taxpayers about their experience and difficulties. A survey was conducted by GSTN on overall taxpayer’s satisfaction during the months of October 2017 & November 2017. The taxpayers for the Survey were selected at random, on the basis of their most recent activity, on the GST portal. The Survey was not conducted State-wise. On the basis of the Survey/ response received, suggestions / concerns were identified. The action/ steps taken by GSTN in this regard is annexed as ANNEXURE.
The aforesaid steps have improved the system and made it user-friendly. Further, the following steps have been taken to make GST system simpler for tax payers:
- Edit facility is available in returns and other forms.
- Offline tools for return preparation and other functionalities have been provided.
- User manual, Video tutorials and FAQs have been provided for different functionalities which can be used by the tax payer.
Approximately 60,000 tax officers/officials of Central/State Government have been trained so that they can assist taxpayer and resolve their queries/grievances and train them on various functionalities.
|
|
ANNEXURE | ||||||||
| Sl.No. | Suggestions/Concerns | Action/steps taken by GSTN | |||||||
| There | were | gaps in | Video tutorials and Webinars are being conducted on | ||||||
| general understanding | regular basis by GSTN. Help on portal has also been | ||||||||
| of | the | electronic | enhanced and language in text scripts are being | ||||||
| (i) | processes for complying | continuously monitored and amended as the case | |||||||
| on GST Portal (Specific | may be for better understanding. | ||||||||
| technical | Issues | like | |||||||
| Digital signature related | |||||||||
| problems etc.) | |||||||||
| Helpdesk is not able to | Trainings are arranged for all helpdesk agents by | ||||||||
| (ii) | respond | to | problems | GSTN regularly. Periodic refreshers are also being | |||||
| effectively. | held. | ||||||||
| Preview facility, offline tools assist the taxpayers in | |||||||||
| avoiding mistakes. Reset functionality for GSTR-3B | |||||||||
| was introduced in October 2017 and thereafter for | |||||||||
| GSTR-4 (Composition Taxpayer Return). | |||||||||
| (iii) | Mistakes | in | return | Data for GSTR-1 can be amended in subsequent | |||||
| cannot be corrected | month’s GSTR-1 through amendment table. | ||||||||
| GSTR-3B values of turnover, tax, and ITC can be | |||||||||
| adjusted in subsequent month’s GSTR-3B | |||||||||
| One click nil return filing has also been introduced. | |||||||||
| Multiple enhancements have been undertaken which | |||||||||
| has improved the overall site performance. On 20th | |||||||||
| Feb 2018, 17.97 Lakh returns were filed along with | |||||||||
| Site performance | being | 6.9 lakh payment transactions on the GST portal. | |||||||
| Even | at this load, server utilization | was less than | |||||||
| (iv) | slow | and | has | multiple | |||||
| 30%. | |||||||||
| problems | |||||||||
| The software has been further tuned to increase the | |||||||||
| number of logged in users and now 1,50,000 | |||||||||
| taxpayers can transact and function on the portal at | |||||||||
| the same time. | |||||||||
| Contextual | help | not | GST System has introduced contextual help of all | ||||||
| GST | related transactions like | Registration, | |||||||
| (v) | available. | Errors | are | ||||||
| Payments, returns etc. This however, is a continuous | |||||||||
| generic and non-intuitive | |||||||||
| process. | |||||||||
| The number of agents has been increased to 520 and | |||||||||
| GSTN has also introduced a dedicated Grievance | |||||||||
| It is extremely difficult to | Redressal Portal that navigates a taxpayer to specify | ||||||||
| the problem in a focused manner. This has reduced | |||||||||
| reach helpdesk. It takes | |||||||||
| (vi) | generic emails which had a tendency to incompletely | ||||||||
| a long time to respond to | |||||||||
| and ambiguously describe the problem. A suggestive | |||||||||
| issues escalated | |||||||||
| help text is also displayed on the screen when the | |||||||||
| taxpayer is narrating the problem on the grievance | |||||||||
| redressal portal. | |||||||||
This was stated by Shri Ship Pratap Shukla, Minister of State for Finance in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.