Experts advise govt to reconsider penalty on inconsistent E-way bill

Mumbai, January 16 (KNN) To remove the undue financial burden off MSME tax payers, experts have suggested the government to think about issues that tax payers have to pay two times their tax liability as penalty if they have not filed E-way bill or if there is discrepancy in the E-way bill.

Anindita Chatterjee - Partner - TCN Global and Economic Advisory Services LLP raised this concern stating tax payers have to pay two times even if the tax payer has raised a valid Tax Invoice/Paid Taxes on the Same/Reported the Supply.  

In order to reduce audit and litigation in GST (Good and Service Tax) procedures, experts have suggested three policy measures including reduction or exemption of penalty for any procedural lapses by taxpayers.

"Procedural lapses by taxpayers or by their vendors lead to audit, scrutiny, show cause notice and subsequently to litigation, which increases the compliance cost and time for assesses, thereby defeating the goal of ‘Ease of Doing Business’,” said CA Pritam Mahure, CEO & Founder, Pritam Mahure & Associates at a workshop on Practical Insights to Handle GST Litigation and Audit organised by MVIRDC World Trade Center Mumbai.

The other two measures are immunity for MSME taxpayers for non-compliance or cancellation of registration of their vendors and issuance of detailed guidelines for claiming input tax credit against payment made for intermediary services such as investment banking.

Over 1.39 crore registered GST assesses, approximately 55,000 taxpayers have received audit notice under section 65 of CGST Act on various grounds such as non-payment or inadequate payment of tax liability, wrongful claim of input tax credit or mismatch of data in tax returns and audited books of accounts.

"After five years of GST regime, we are seeing an increase in the number of tax audits, departmental scrutiny and litigation between assesses and tax departments. A lot of tax payers are denied input tax credit or they are asked to reverse the already claimed input tax credit because of negligence or non-compliance by their vendors," Mahure said.

The event was attended by finance and tax professionals, corporate executives and MSME entrepreneurs.  (KNN Bureau)