KOCHI: The help desk of Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the agency implementing GST in India could not answer 70 per cent of queries by GST registrants as on September 26, 2017. According to a reply given to an RTI query, the GSTN received 5,61,749 queries through email till September 26 and the agency was able to reply only to 1,71,864 emails. The number of emails that went unaddressed amounted to 69.40 per cent and this could have been one of the prime reasons for the decrease in filing of compliance rate coming down to 50 per cent from the earlier levels of 66 per cent, said Jacob Santosh, Ernak-ulam district president of All Kerala GST Practitio-ners Association.
The confusion in the system was compounded by extending the date for filing GSTR for the month of July to November 30 and GSTR3 to December 11, he said. According to Santosh, GST payers and tax practitioners were put to hardship due to the systemic failure of software used for the purpose. The GST system operates mainly on three sets of returns named GSTR1, GSTR2 and GSTR3.
The first one deals with sales and the second with purchases while the third accounts for the setting-off involved in sales and purchases of goods or services. Santosh says GSTN authorities should reveal to taxpayers the technical glitches, if any, in the tax system. The government has paid Rs 1,380 crore for GSTN software and authorities have a moral responsibility to tell the people about it, he said. The GSTN authorities are silent even after an RTI query was submitted in this regard, he added.
