With the August 28 (Monday) deadline looming for filing returns and ensuring GST compliance, corporate are deeply concerned about the GSTR Filings and the Input Creedit to be claimed by them. A company with Rs 100-crore credit in lieu of taxes paid in the past regime, risks losing it now under the goods and services tax (GST) regime simply because of the risk of error over the online portal of GST. The offline utility for GST TRAN 1 form — to be used to claim input tax credit for the pre-GST regime, was not available till Sunday, leaving just a day for filing returns and causing a weekend rush. In absence of the same, details are to furnished and filed over online portal which increases the risk of errors as an offline utility allows entry of details, careful scrutiny and subsequent submission, reducing chances of errors while online filing may lead to fat finger errors. 

What has more added to the worry of the corporate world is that no clarity has been given by the GSTN on the revision of TRAN 1 post filing of the same. This has led to a clamour for another extension of the deadline or a provision allowing amending of the form later. The government had already extended the deadline once for those seeking to claim transitional credit from the past regime from August 20 to August 28, following industry representations. 

Taxpayers are required to provide challan-wise or invoice-wise to claim of Cenvat or value added tax credit on capital goods, details of stocks at job workers’ premises, concessional rate of central sales tax claimed under the previous regime and claims where invoices were not received till June 30. Therefore, in some companies, these details shall run down in thousand of lines which shall be required to be punched manually. Further, TRAN 1 (and consequently, all such details) is to be submitted for each jurisdiction where the entity has registration. Absence of the offline utility thus becomes a significant issue. 

The industry, however, has already demanded a tech audit of the GST Network. The Confederation of All India Traders last week asked the government to order a tech audit of GSTN in the wake of filing issues. 

Another official said the government is keeping a close watch on the situation. 

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