Law Committee just launched some new rules and ways to issue GST in India due to the regulation of fake invoices in the current GST system.
- The proposals by the law committee of the GST Council, including central and state officials who advise its ministerial members, aim to stiffen compliance actions and target restrictions on firms identified as risky such as fake invoices, and much more as per the sources.
Here are a few points suggested by the Law Council to monitor and issue new GST number:
- The committee has suggested introducing an Aadhaar-like registration process for new applicants under the GST management which means that a new registration can be done online with live photos and the use of biometrics after document verification. This facility can be provided at banks, post offices, and GST Seva kendras (GSKs). The GSKs would function similarly as the passport Seva kendras and provide new registration facilities with the mandatory checks on fake registration, according to the sources.
- A person seeking GST registration would be profiled based on their IDs and classified into trustworthy and others using income tax returns. Their profile will be created based on their tax payment history and they will also look into the fact that if their GST registration was ever canceled or not for any reason, their registration will be authenticated by their Adhaar card, after that, they will get their registration within a week. The others will be given the registration within two months of physical verification of business premises.
- Other proposals include discontinuation of the registration of a business that has not filed for GST returns for six months, identifying businesses that pose a risk of revenue loss to the exchequer, and control on using tax credits from the purchase of raw materials to meet the final tax liability.
- According to the news site Business Standard, The committee also recommended that whoever decides to apply for GST may also be required to deposit a certain portion of their taxes through cash or via bank guarantee up to 2 percent of their tax dues. Currently, they pay all taxes through the input tax credit. They should have a convincing I-T footprint available to establish financial credibility to avail of an input tax credit-based payment. These conditions can ease up a bit too but that depends on the jurisdiction officer, according to the committee.
- People who seem dodgier will have to undergo an in-person verification at the GSKs. According to the committee, there are 600,000 inactive registrants. Of those given registration in 2018-19 and 2019-20, 35,000 dealers had a GST liability of more than Rs 5 lakh yearly and they paid more than 99 percent of their tax through an input tax credit. They did not pay I-T of even Rs 1 lakh in the past three years.