Traders body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has written to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman requesting for an extension of the last date for filing annual Goods and Services Tax (GST) return in form GSTR 9 to 31st October from current 31st August 2019.

The association’s national president B C Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal chalked the two-month extension up to the “very complicated” GSTR 9 form for filing the annual return as details sought are “totally new and therefore were never included GST software of different companies,” CAIT said in a letter to the minister. Hence, traders are not able to comply with the filing requirements within the stipulated time.

“For example, the cost price of each commodity, the sale price of each commodity, and HSN code of each item are now asked by the government. These weren’t required when GST was introduced. Hence, GST filing software doesn’t have provision to fill these details,” Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary-General, CAIT had told Financial Express Online.

The association also highlighted that the GST portal hasn’t been working efficiently for traders to upload the form even as from past over 20 days the internet connectivity in Jammu and Kashmir hasn’t been smooth while floods in multiple regions have severely hit the businesses that would take time to get back to normalcy, according to Bhartia and Khandelwal. CAIT also sought simplification of the GSTR 9 form to the extent that “even an ordinary trader may be able to file the return himself,” CAIT said that represents over 7 crore small traders in India.

“Also, the length of the form should be reduced from five-six pages to one page,” Khandelwal had said. CAIT had earlier this year also sought extension in filing the GST return from June 30 to at least the following three months. It had also asked for enhancing the duration of filing GST return from monthly to quarterly in order to reduce paperwork and cut manpower cost and time.

Published On : 25-08-2019

Source : Financial Express