Starting this month, GST taxpayers will have the assistance of auto-generated documents detailing tax liability and availability of input tax credit (ITC) to make it easier for them to file their monthly summary returns (GSTR-3B), the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) said on Wednesday.

Usually, the taxpayers face two main issues while filing their GSTR-3B which are related to their liability and ITC. Till now, taxpayers were required to compute these values but now the system has been upgraded to enable linking of summary returns and the outward supply return or GSTR-1.

Taxpayers above `1.5 crore turnover are required to file GSTR-1 by the 11th of every month and GSTR-3B by 20th. This linking of these two returns has been done for these taxpayers but the functionality for others, who are allowed to file GSTR-1 quarterly, would be enabled later.

The linking will provide taxpayers with available credit they can claim. In this enhancement, system will auto-generate the invoice-wise ITC statement based on information furnished by the suppliers of the taxpayer in GSTR-1. “A new form GSTR-2B has been launched for this purpose which is, unlike GSTR-2A, a static statement and will be made available for each month on the 12th day of the succeeding month,” GSTN said.

It added that linking of returns is expected to give GSTN a big edge in curbing under-reporting of liability and over-reporting of ITC which has been a major concern for the government. Further, after taxpayers are accustomed to the additional information, the data automatically start flowing into GSTR-3B. In other words, GSTN will auto-populate the GSTR-3B return of the taxpayers.

These enhancements have been decided upon by the GST Council after the group of ministers (GoM) headed by Bihar deputy chief minister Sushil Modi decided that proposed new returns would be shelved in favour of continuing with the existing system of returns with improvements and modifications to plug loopholes.

Source : Financial Express