Bengaluru, 01 July (KNN) Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi has said that the new Goods and Service Tax (GST) return filing system will enable traders to file returns in a single format once a month instead of multiple formats. He heads the Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into the revenue shortfall after the GST roll-out.

The meeting in Bengaluru pertained to information technology initiatives in the GST.

Modi said the GST council has decided that the new filing system would be launched from October 1 this year, dubbing the new system as GST-2.

According to him, the new return does away with all the hassles as one has to file returns only once in a month. He said, "It's only two years of GST and I can tell you that the revenue collection is very encouraging.”

"For big tax payers it is 12 returns a year and for small taxpayers, it is only four returns a year," he said.

The deadline for implementation of the new system for small taxpayers is January 1, 2020 whereas for big taxpayers above 5 crore, it is October 1, 2019, he said.

Another major step, he said, was giving the Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag to motor vehicles to capture data by sensors at a definite place.

The new return does away with all the hassles as one has to file returns only once in a month, according to him. The GST council is contemplating putting up such sensors at 450 toll plazas and make Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag mandatory for all vehicles.

He said that the tax collection under GST in 2017-18 was 7.4 lakh crore, which was of nine months whereas in 2018-19, when we had 12 months, the total revenue collected was 11.77 lakh crore. GST, which subsumed 17 local levies, was rolled out on the intervening night of June 30 and July 1, 2017, in a ceremony held in the central hall of the parliament.

The GST Council, headed by then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state ministers, had on December 22, 2018, decided to set up a GoM to analyze reasons for shortfall in revenue collections by the states since July 2017.

On checking tax evasion, Modi said new features have been introduced in the e-way bill to check tax evasion. The e-way bills will be auto-operated checking "pin-to-pin" distance and this will ensure that no duplicate bill can be generated.

E-Invoice is another major step which will check tax evasion and filing returns will not be necessary as data will be captured in the system. Through E-Invoicing, e-way bill will be generated and return will be filed automatically. It will be a major tool to check tax evasion," Modi said.