New Delhi, May 6 (KNN) In its  recent meeting, the GST Council, the highest policy making body for GST has approved a simplified GST return process.

Though to be implemented in a phased manner, over the next six months, the revised process of GST return will address a long drawn demand of the MSMEs.

The relevant press release mention about a single monthly return  of the registered dealers against at least 40  returns originally stipulated in the GST Act.

The plethora of returns particularly the matching of buyers and sellers invoices was making compliance to GST an arduous task for MSMEs.

And the effects were evident. In  April, 2018 while the GST collection by the Government reached  an all time high of  one lakh crore rupees, only 65% of the  registered dealers filed the returns.

So it is clear that while dealers are ready to pay the tax, they find it difficult file the return.

In fact, the issue was repeatedly taken up by the MSME Associations with the GST Council particularly, for  exempting the dealers from the difficult task of  matching of invoices with the suppliers.

The interlinkage of the earlier GST return formats of  1, 2, and 3 was the core reason for non submission of the returns by the dealers particularly the small firms.

Even after paying the GST on the inputs, the dealers could not take credit of the same in their returns for GST deposited by them till  these are cross checked with the invoices of the suppliers of inputs.

The new procedure will not need cross checking  by  dealers and invoices uploaded by the seller s during the month  would be the valid document to avail input tax credit by the buyer. 

Buyer would also be able to continuously see the uploaded invoices during the month.  

As per the time frame announced by the Government,  the single return will be introduced within 6 months and till the dealers has to upload GST return No. 1 and 3B.

Another important aspect of the new process will be, generally tax credits claimed by the dealers will not be reversed, even when the supplier fail to deposit the tax except in the extreme cases of fraud or insolvency of the supplier.

Whether the revised return procedure will really ease the environment of doing business, as claimed by the Government, only the time will tell. (KNN/DB)