GST Network all set to Launch a New Version of Return Filing Interface on 22nd October

Shubham Chauhan

16 Oct, 2019

GST Network will be launching a new version of return filing portal on 22^nd October, to further ease the process.

GST Network has decided to launch a new version of the return filling interface on 22nd October of this month. This decision taken by the GST Network aims at easing the process of return filing.

Updates from GST Network

GST Network CEO Mr.Prakash Kumar made this announcement at a seminar organized by IIT Delhi Alumni Association.

He said,

GST network provides IT infrastructure and services to central and state governments, taxpayers, and other stakeholders for the implementation of the GST.

As per Mr. Kumar, GST has reduced difficulty in indirect taxation as its implementation has lowered the number of forms to be filled by businesses to just 12, from 495 under as many as 17 central and state laws in the pre-GST era.

Furthermore, he added that the indirect tax administration now shares data with the income tax department^[1]; this move has helped to bring on the surface the instances of tax evasion. At present, there are 12.3 million registered GST taxpayers.

GST Council Special Secretary Rajeev Ranjan was also present at the seminar and shared his views on the benefits of GST. According to MR. Ranjan GST has reduced the average tax incidence as well as prices and was an essential factor in ensuring that inflation remained under control.

“In a pre-GST era, trucks used to cover about 225 kilometers a day and now it is 300-325 kilometers,” as per Mr. Ranjan, adding that GST has ensured that there is no need to have a fragmented market.

Scenario before and after GST

Before the implementation of GST, there were many indirect taxes. States collected taxes in the form of Value Added Tax (VAT). Rules and regulations of VAT differed from state to state. Central State Tax (CST) was applicable in cases of interstate sale of goods. Apart from these, there were many indirect taxes such as entertainment tax, local tax, etc which were levied by both state and center governments. This led to the overlapping of taxes levied by state and center governments. For instance, when goods were manufactured and sold, the central government used to charge excise duty and above that VAT was charged separately by the state government.

After the implementation of GST, CGST (collected by Central Government on an intra-state sale), SGST(collected by State Government), and IGST(collected by Central Government for inter-state sale) have replaced all the above taxes.