GST Appeals and Dispute Settlement

Narendra Kumar

01 Apr, 2021

Is There any GST Dispute Resolution Mechanism under GST Appeals in India?

GST Appeals

• An appeal under any law is the application made to the higher court by the aggrieved party for the reversal of the decision of the lower court.
• An appeal arises due to a legal dispute between the two parties.
• Tax laws impose obligations on the taxpayer which are basically tax-related and procedure-related. This taxpayer’s compliance carried out by the taxpayer is checked by the tax officer through audit examination, tax evasion. In these situations, there are the chances that views of the officer and taxpayer may differ due to which dispute arises which is required to be resolved.
• There are four levels of appeals under GST:
• The first level of appeal is against the order passed by the adjudicating authority to the First Appellate Authority under section 79.
• The second level of appeal is against the order passed by the First Appellate Authority to the Appellate Tribunal under sections 82, 82, and section 84.
• The third level of appeal is against the order of the Appellate Tribunal to the High Court under section 87.
• The fourth level of appeal is against the order of the High court to the Supreme Court under section 88 and section 89.

What are the General Rules Regarding GST Appeals in India?

• All the appeals shall be filed in the prescribed form along with the prescribed fees containing the full of tax liability interest, penalty fees for filing an appeal from the order which is challenged by the appellant.
• The fees amount shall also include the 10% of the disputed amount. However, in certain cases where the disputed tax liability is more than 25 crores, the amount of pre-deposit may increase up to 25% of the disputed amount.
• The fees are not payable if the application for appeal is made by the officer or commissioner of GST

What are the cases under which Appeal cannot be filed?

The Board or the State Government at the discretion or the recommendation of the Council fix the monetary limits for appeals by the GST Registration officer to regulate the filing of appeals and to avoid unnecessary litigation expenses.

No appeal can be raised against the following decisions of the GST officer:

• Order to transfer the proceeding from one officer to another officer
• An order to seize the books of accounts
• An order sanctioning prosecution under the Act
• An order allowing payment of tax.

GST Dispute Settlement

It is a process of resolving the dispute between the parties. CBEC is the authority acting as an advisory mode on the various matters for solving the disputes. The notification circulated by CBEC related to any issue will bind all the department except the other party and the highest appellate authorities.

There are different ways by which the dispute between the parties can be resolved:

• GST Dispute Settlement Authority
• Online Dispute Settlement
• The judicial Dispute Settlement mechanism
• Extra-Judicial Dispute Settlement

GST law^[1] also includes various other modes like Advancing ruling and Settlement Commission.

The salient features are:

The advancing ruling is not limited to a particular subject; it can be brought forward for different subjects. This subject includes classification of goods/services, the rate of tax, a method of valuation, Input tax credit, liability to pay tax etc.

The advancing ruling covers all activities under GST, whether it is a new one or existing

Whenever there is a dispute between the applicant and the department, they can move forward with an appeal under GST rules and regulation. The aggrieved party under the advance ruling will get an opportunity to file an appeal before the appellate authority for revision of ruling.

Also, Read

• GST Forms – Types of Return and Due Date of Filing
• GST Returns to be Filed by Different Taxpayers