GSTBA seeks more time for filing tax

According to the association, the state government has not yet provided stationery and is still not ready with proper arrangements for accepting the tax in banks after implementation of VAT.

There are several issues which the government is yet to clear and the filing date is closing in. Pradip Jain, president of GSTBA, said, "To pay tax, stationery including Form 201 is not available at the board office. Also, the form is too lengthy and confusing."

He further said, "On the other side, banks are not accepting the VAT paid by the businessmen. Several banks do not have facility to accept VAT. So businessmen are not able to pay taxes."

He said, "This is because state government did not inform RBI to accept tax under the VAT accounts created in public sector banks. Hence, banks do not have the accounts to debit the tax paid by businessmen."

Meanwhile, the deadline of not charging penalties and fines has already been over on Monday.

"Businessmen are ready to pay the taxes but banks are not accepting, The state government on the other hand will fine charges from Tuesday," said Jain.

He added that GSTBA has also urged government to extend the date for penalties till July 31.

He said, "Before implementing VAT, state government committed that it will form a body "" VAT Implementation Committee, to help the businessmen by solving each and every problems regarding VAT. Till date, the government has not formed it."

"In short we want the government to extend accepting VAT for one more month, make Form 201 more user friendly and shorter. We want government to ask public sector bank to accept taxes and to form VAT Implementation Committee," said Jain.

Mehul Gandhi, tax advocate and member of GSTBA, said, "Still government has not issued notices regarding tax rates for which businessmen are confused how to charge tax to customer."

He also said before accepting taxes, government should make all confusions clear.