What are the Key Features of the 4 GST Amendment Bills 2018?
It is beyond any doubt that GST authorities have so far modified the laws and provisions under the Goods & Service Tax regime as regards GST registration and GST return filing as to make them more propitious to the trade & commerce. The government is however intent on making the system totally goof-proof for the taxpayers as well as the authorities by recurrent amendments in the provisions under GST.
In this respect, the government has sought to amend the GST Acts so as to rework on several provisions under GST that are tentative and doubtful as yet, such as the long-awaited new GST return filing model, the “partially suspended” Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM), Input Tax credit and so forth.
#1. Which are the amendments the government has decided to make to GST laws?
The GST Council has proposed 4 amendment bills to the CGST Act-2017, IGST Act-2017, UTGST Act-2017 and GST (Compensation to States) Act-2017 in the parliament on 7th August 2018. The amendment bills are as follows:
- CGST (Amendment) Bill 2018
- IGST (Amendment) Bill 2018
- UTGST (Amendment) Bill 2018
- GST (Compensation to States) Amendment Bill 2018
#2. What is the motive behind the introduction of these 4 amendment bills?
It is not a Dark Truth that several crucial provisions of GST are still very ambiguous and inconvenient for certain sectors of the economy. So, the main motive of the government to propose these 4 amendments to the GST laws is to make suitable reforms in those crucial provisions as regards GST registration procedure and GST return filing procedure, that includes-
- Type of Supplies,
- Reverse Charge Mechanism (RCM),
- GST registration under Composition Scheme,
- The concept of Input Tax credit (ITC),
- Types of GST Returns and the new GST return filing model
- Compensation to States
And many more.
#3. What are the key amendments proposed in the CGST (Amendment) Bill 2018?
The government has proposed total 32 amendments in the CGST Act-2017. Some key highlights as follows-
- Clause 4: It seeks to amend section 9(4) of the CGST Act-2017 regarding Restriction of the GST on reverse charge mechanism to supplies of certain specific categories of goods & services on the recommendations of the 28th GST Council meeting.
- Clause 5: It seeks amendment of section 10 of the CGST Act-2017 relating to Levy of GST under Composition scheme. It seeks to raise the threshold of turnover for a taxpayer to be eligible for GST registration under composition scheme from ₹1 crore to ₹1.5 crores.
Furthermore, it will allow the composition dealers to provide services (other than those of restaurants), for up to a value not exceeding 10% of the turnover in the previous financial year, or ₹5 lakhs, whichever is greater.
- Clause 14: This is to amend section 29 of the Act as regards “Cancellation of GST registration”, wherein there will be a provision of temporary suspension of registration soon after applying cancellation of GST registration certificate till the final cancellation.
#4. What are the amendments proposed in the IGST Act 2017?
There are total 4 amendments proposed in the IGST Act 2017, which are as follows:
- Section 5 of the Act will be amended to notify categories of registered persons to pay GST on reverse charge (RCM) basis with respect to receipt of the specified type of supplies from unregistered dealers;
- Section 12 will be amended to notify that if the goods are transported is outside India, the place of destination of such goods shall be considered the place of supply;
- Section 17 will be amended to provide for a settlement of balance in the IGST equally between CGST & SGST; and
- Section 20 will be amended to state the amount of pre-deposit payable for the filing of appeals before-
- The Appellate Authority capped at ₹ 50 crores
- The Appellate Tribunal capped ₹100 crores.
#5. What are the amendments proposed in UTGST Act 2017?
There are total 3 amendments proposed in the IGST Act 2017, which are given below:
- Section 7 will be amended so as to notify classes of the registered taxpayers to pay the GST liability on the reverse charge mechanism as regards receipt of specified categories of supplies from unregistered dealers;
- Section 9 will be amended so as to provide that input credit on account of the UTGST shall be utilized for payment of IGST only if the balance of input credit of CGST is not available for settlement of integrated tax and
- New sections 9A and 9B will be introduced for “Utilization of input tax credit” and for “Order of utilization of input tax credit”.
#6. What are the amendments proposed in GST (Compensation to States) Act 2017?
2 amendments have been proposed in the IGST Act 2017, as below:
- A new sub-section 3A in section 10 of the Act will be included to provide that any unutilized amount in the Compensation Fund may be distributed between CGST & SGST anytime in a financial year; and
- Section 5 of the Act is to be amended. In case any deficit arises in the Compensation Fund against the actual requirement of compensation is to be released u/s 7 for any 2 months’ period at 50% of the same, but this should not exceed the total amount transferred to Centre & States.
- It shall be recovered from Centre and the balance 50% from the States proportionate to their base year revenue determined.
These amendments are sure to reduce uncertainties and bring more conduciveness in GST laws.
If you need any sort of guidance regarding GST registration in India or GST return filing process, feel free to contact us at 8881-069-069.
Comments
Sir, You will need to file your late Gst returns only upon the filing of the late fee, only then the cancelled GST registration can be revoked.
Dear sir, Kindly provide some relaxation of waiver of GSTR 3B filing, many cases are pending to be filed. Middle class people cannot afford to pay such penalty .due to which there registration is also cancelled. And mainly the return are to be filed from Jan to till date.. I hereby request to provide last time chance so as to enable to file the return and get the registration revoked as soon as possible.. Looking for favourable action in this Matter. Thanks and regards Amit Nagdev