Tax Dept. Mulls Mechanism to Set Monetary Limit for Issuing GST Demand Notices

New Delhi: The tax department under the finance ministry is planning for a mechanism to set a monetary limit for issuing goods and services tax or GST demand notices to ensure that notices are not issued on flimsy grounds. The ministry is expected to issue an instruction soon to the field formations in this regard, a senior official said on Tuesday.

Addressing an Assocham event here, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) member Shashank Priya said that the board would soon issue an instruction to the field formations in this regard. “We will ensure some sort of mentoring by senior officers so that notices are not issued on flimsy grounds,” Priya said.

The official also said that once a demand is raised, field offices must ensure ‘fair adjudication. The messaging that we need to give is, we are not interested in demand just getting confirmed. Where demand is not fair we shouldn't be scared of dropping it and that is a cultural change we have to start working,” he said.

As the new rates on next-gen GST reforms have already been implemented in the system, Priya also said that the department is working on making the GST return process simpler by making both outward supply and inward purchases automated. “We have sent letters to all the associations and field formations to interact with the taxpayers to see where in the existing GSTR-3B framework amendments are needed,” he said.

“Thereafter, we will see how we can address it so that at the end of the day the only point of input in return for those with annual turnover of above Rs 5 crore is e-invoice and everything else will be automated. Currently, e-invoice is mandatory for B2B sales for businesses with turnover of Rs 5 crore and above,” he said, adding that the department is also looking at how to make the e-invoice process simpler so that taxpayers with lower turnover can start adopting it.