GST Council to meet today; exporters may get some relief

New Delhi: The all powerful GST Council will meet on Friday amidst wide expectations that there could be announcements like easier refund of input credit for exporters, deferring of reverse charge mechanism for unregistered traders and promise of no enquiry into the tax matters of the previous VAT regime of indirect taxes.

The full fledged meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council is also likely to assess the improvements in the GST Network's functioning.

This will be the 22nd meeting of the Council.

In his speech at the Institute of Company Secretaries on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised the traders that the government would not dig into the past through any retrospective investigation of traders joining the formal economy.

Officials in the ministry said that the Group of Ministers, under Sushil Modi, set up to look into GSTN glitches will also brief the Council on the portal's functioning.

With over 33 lakh businesses filing the final GSTR-1 return, the GoM has tasked GSTN to send reminder text messages to the remaining 20 lakh businesses which are yet to submit the tax forms.

The last date for filing of final sales returns for July in GSTR-1 form is October 10, while the date for uploading of purchase returns in GSTR-2 is October 31.

The final GSTR-3, matching GSTR-1 and 2, is to be filed by November 10.

The GoM in its meeting yesterday has asked GSTN and Infosys to brace up for handling the rush of last-minute filers.

Besides, the committee set up under Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on issues faced by exporters, is likely to submit its preliminary report to the Council tomorrow.

Based on that the Council is likely to recommend some relaxation for exporters so that their working capital which is locked up in refunds is released, officials said.

Also, the apex indirect tax body CBEC will inform the Council that it is ready to release Integrated GST (IGST) refunds to exporters from October 10.

In a meeting with the Revenue Secretary last month, exporters had said that an estimated Rs 65,000 crore is locked up in GST refunds.

Also officials said that easy compliance for exporters, like quarterly filing of returns instead of monthly filing, is likely to be discussed by the Council.

The government has already allowed exporters to furnish Letter of Undertaking (LUT) instead of bonds at the time of exports, which will ease the compliance burden and stop locking up of capital.

With PTI Inputs