CHANDIGARH, 4 NOVEMBER: A delegation of GST Co-ordination Committee of Chandigarh Beopar Mandal consisting of Charanjiv Singh, Ramkaran Gupta, Sanjeev Chadha, Harjeet Singh and Advocate Hitesh Puri called on Alok Passi, AETC to apprise him about trader’s grievances regarding unjust implementation of GST provisions below mentioned issues were raised by the delegation members on behalf of traders of the city.
Traders of city find penalty of Rs.20000/- being imposed for not displaying GST certificate in the shops seems to be unjustified and very high. This does not seems to be fair as traders have already written GST number at prominent place of premises as per direction given by department last year. Display of GST number is sufficient proof of registration and certificate can be shown to visiting officials if required or it can be checked by the official online from GST portal.
It has also being observed that mismatch notices by department to the amount of lacks and Crore of rupees are being sent to traders on the basis of different softwares. CBM demanded that It should be verified from the returns of assesses available in portal before sending such notice as it is big harassment to traders. Only verified notices should be sent for the year 2017-18 and subsequent years being initial years
In case of scrutiny or auditing of GST 2017-18 cases, any disallowing of input tax credit or mismatch, apart from 18% interest, penalty amounting to Rs.50000/- is being imposed in all cases although it was Rs.2000/- to Rs.3000/- in Vat assessment cases. It is very difficult for small and medium traders to pay 18% penal interest and also such hefty penalty. As GST was a new concept for traders for initial years, some mistakes may have happened resulting to mismatch or wrongly claiming of input tax credit. So instructions should be given to E.T.O. not to impose any penalty for initial 2-3 years or minor penalty of Rs.2000/- to Rs.3000/- may be imposed if at all required by law.
The officer assured the delegation to consider the issues raised sympathetically and said although display of GST certificate is mandated by law but he promised to be lenient over this issue. He also assured to send notices after due verification only in future and also bring less number of cases in scrutiny and auditing. He also assured to instruct the E.T.O.s to impose minimum penalty while doing assessment of GST cases.