Finance Minister T. Harish Rao has expressed concern over diversion of huge revenue on account of State bifurcation and non-updation of customer addresses by certain tax payers.
Customer addresses in the records of certain tax payers were still showing Andhra Pradesh even though they were located in Telangana. The Minister raised the issue during the GST Council meeting which started in Chandigarh.
Mr. Harish Rao, accompanied by Finance special chief secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao, met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on the sidelines of the GST Council meeting. He thanked the GST Council for proposing to allow negative values in GSTR 3B returns in the proposed new form. The same facility should be incorporated in the current 3B form too so that the extent of mistakes in declaring wrong place of supply during the current year could be rectified.
The Minister requested the cooperation of officials of State governments, especially jurisdiction officers of tax payers located outside in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi, to ensure recovery of IGST that was diverted. The Union Revenue Secretary had assured that he would conduct a meeting with officials of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka for sorting out the issue instead of burdening tax payers with payment of IGST again.
Mr. Harish Rao, during the discussion on pruning list of exemptions pertaining to devices provided in relation to functions of local bodies, requested the GST council chairperson to expand the list of exemptions. Otherwise, these may burden the local bodies which were already under financial stress. The request had been considered and the matter was referred to the fitment committee to undertake a detailed study for evolving new proposals.
He wanted the matter related to provisions of GST Appellate Tribunal to be referred to the Group of Ministers as the proposed provisions were cumbersome. Ms. Sitharaman agreed for the proposal and requested the GoM to submit its report in this regard by August 1. Mr. Harish Rao also wanted the proposals on horse racing to be referred to the GoM again.
