GST compliance: Good relief say small, medium industry players

PANAJI
With the Goods and Services Tax Council making GST compliance a lot easier, more than 90 per cent industries in Goa that fall into the micro, small and medium enterprises categories stand to benefit.
Even before the GST Council announced the relaxations, the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and chartered accountants (CAs) had made representations to Chief Minister, Manohar Parrikar, apprising him of the issues faced by businesses due to GST compliance.
Vinesh Pikale, a CA from Panaji, said, "It appears that the central government has taken care of most concerns raised by business community. For example, businesses with annual turnover upto Rs 1.5 crore, will pay GST once in a quarter and will also file GST return once in a quarter."
Since July 1, all businesses have filed simplified GST return twice and have attempted filing detailed GST return for July few times. This was not only time consuming, but they even had to pay for the services of tax professionals. Therefore, quarterly tax filing for small businesses with upto Rs 1.5 crore annual turnover will go a long way in making compliance easier.
Rajkumar Kamat, president, Goa State Industries Association (GSIA), said, "GST Council's announcements show a clear cut attempt to ensure that teething problems are resolved by March 31, 2018. The council will start the refund process for July for exporters by October 10, which is a fantastic step. Increasing limit for composition scheme to Rs 1 crore annual turnover from existing Rs 75 lakh will also make compliance easier for MSMEs in Goa."
Under GST, no tax is charged on exports; however, suppliers of exporters pay GST. Therefore, exporters can take refund from the government to the extent of GST already paid by their suppliers. This refund is yet to be started, which was causing a lot of anguish to exporters. Ashish Prabhu Verlekar, a CA, said, "Pharmaceutical sector in Goa can gain a lot due to this announcement because most of their production is exported. Besides, the council has suspended e-way billing and reverse charge mechanism (RCM) till March 31, 2018, which will also go a long way in making compliance easier."
A lot of businesses were suffering because e-way bill, which was earlier required on transport of goods from one state to another, couldn't be generated in time. In fact, in earlier indirect tax regime, there was no provision of e-way bill in Goa. Under GST, such bills are required to transport items worth more than Rs 50,000 within India.
Now that e-way bills are suspended till March 31 next year, businesses can take a sigh of relief. Till recently, if a buyer was buying anything worth more than Rs 5,000 per day from an unregistered supplier, the buyer was supposed to pay GST on it. This is called reverse charge and it was causing a lot of pain to the buyers, who had to pay GST because unregistered suppliers weren't paying.
In fact, Parrikar had also announced that he would advocate suspension of reverse charge for the time being. The GST Council has suspended this charge till March 31 next year, which again will make compliance a lot easier.