Respected Professional Colleagues,

One of the biggest reforms has been rolled out with effect from 1st July, 2017. In the words of our PM, it is indeed a turning point in the country’s economy and unprecedented moments in the country’s history. It is a tax reform based on processes and compliances. It is a technology driven process. There are various teething problems and hardships being faced by the stakeholders. Some of them are:

a) No cancellation utility has been provided by GSTN till date. By mandate, many traders and service providers, registered under the concerned VAT Act have been migrated under GST law w.e.f. 1-7-2017. They want to surrender their registration number under GST due to their turnover being less than threshold limit but no utility for cancellation is available on GSTN portal and they are made to compulsorily file the GST return in Form 3B.

b) There is no provision for amendment or rectification in Form 3B. Once the error is committed that is perpetuated to the disadvantage of the dealer.

c) Composition dealers under earlier regime have been migrated to GST regime under regular scheme but no option is provided to revert back to composition scheme due to technical glitch in GSTN.

d) Registered suppliers who wish to change their registration particulars due to change of address, constitution etc. cannot file amendment applications despite the fact that under the GST law they are bound to file the same within 30 days from the date of change, as correction / amendment utility is not available on GSTN portal.

e) Filing of First Appeal against rejection order on fresh registration application is not provided so far.

f) There is a very poor response on the part of Department though repeated e-mails are sent to GSTN and phone calls are made to help desk.

g) Utility of filing TRAN-1 Form is made available only on 21-8-2017 i.e., 52 days late from 1-7-2017 whereas last date for filing Form 3B is 28-8-2017. Thus a very short time is given to submit the details.

h) That the rates of many items are not yet cleared.

i) As per order-dated 18-6-2017, it was promised that no penalty would be levied but returns are not accepted without deposit of fee.

j) The provisions of Section 9(4) of CGST Act are to be relooked as these are not revenue yielding at all rather these are against the spirit of SCST and are killing the small businessmen who are under the threshold limit.

Our Federation has filed a detailed representation to Hon’ble Prime Minister and Hon’ble Finance Minister, pointing out all the difficulties and also requesting for extension of time for filing GSTR 3B as the substantial part of the country is suffering from floods. It is also pointed out that in order to achieve object of ease of doing business, the filing of returns be made quarterly though the tax may be monthly paid by due date. We hope that the Government will look into these problems and sort out them.

Now looking to the present situation, Government has issued Notification Nos. 30 & 31 of 2017 on 11th September 2017 and has sympathetically considered the entire position and has extended the date of filing of return as under:

Sl. No.	Details/return	Class of taxable/registered persons	Time period for furnishing of details /return
(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
1.	GSTR-1	Having turnover of more than one hundred crore rupees	Up to 3rd Oct. 2017
		Having turnover of up to one hundred crore rupees	Up to 10th Oct. 2017
2.	GSTR-2	All	Up to 31st Oct. 2017
3.	GSTR-3	All	Up to 10th Nov. 2017

Similarly, Government has also extended the time limit for furnishing the return by an input service distributor u/s. 39(4) of CGST Act read with Rule 65 of CGST Rules, 2017 for the month of July 2017 up to 13th October, 2017. Government has also clarified that the date for filing the return for the month of August, 2017 u/ss. 37(1), 38(2), 39(1) and 39(4) shall be notified subsequently.

Friends, I may also apprise you that our Government is determinate and taking stern action to fight black money and to fight the menace of shell companies. It is stated that the fight against black money shall be incomplete without breaking the network of shell companies. Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Government of India has released one press information dated 12-9-2017 that in pursuant to the action of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs of cancellation of registration of around 2.10 lakh (2,09,032) defaulting companies and subsequent direction of the Ministry of Finance to banks to restrict operation of bank accounts of such companies by the Directors of such companies or their authorised representatives, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs has identified 1,06,578 Directors for disqualification u/s. 164(2)(a) of the Companies Act, 2013 as on September 12, 2017.

It may be recalled that as per Section 164 of the Companies Act 2013, any person who is or has been a Director in a Company which has not filed financial statements or annual returns for any continuous period of 3 financial years shall not be eligible for reappointment as a Director in that company or appointed in other company for a period of 5 years from the date on which the said company fails to do so. Also, Section 248 of the Act provides that the liability, if any, of every Director, Manager or other Officer who was exercising any powers of management and of every member of the deregistered, dissolved company shall continue and may be enforced as if the company had not been deregistered / dissolved. Further, Section 167 of the Act provides that on suffering the aforesaid disqualification, the Director shall vacate the office.

Friends, last but not the least we have just concluded our two-day Conference at Kolkata on 2nd & 3rd September 2017. Special thanks to Mr. R. D. Kakra and the entire East Zone Team for the success of this Conference which came as a “Sanjeevani” to all the stakeholders in the GST regime. Now I am inviting you all at Mangaluru on 4th & 5 November, 2017 and the unique feature of the Conference is that we are celebrating a Foundation Week, reminding you that AIFTP is entering into its 42nd year.

With these words, I conclude my communiqué with a sincere advice:

“Fill the brain with high thoughts, highest ideals, place them day and night before you and out of that will come a great work.”

With Best Regards,

Prem Lata Bansal
National President