IGST credit accrued in FY18 won't lapse even if not availed, assures FinMin

The Finance Ministry on Tuesday assured trade and industry that input tax credit accrued on import of goods by paying GST in 2017-18 will not lapse even if the taxpayer has not claimed credit in the same financial year.

Addressing concerns raised by trade and industry regarding filing of annual returns for the first year (2017-18) of Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll out, the ministry also advised taxpayers to file the correct data about tax payment and other details as reported in monthly sales returns in annual return GSTR-9 by omitting the auto populated data.

The ministry said that many taxpayers have raised concern that annual return form GSTR-9 does not allow a taxpayer to report details of IGST paid on imports made in 2017-18 but credit for the same was availed in 2018-19.

"Due to this, there are apprehensions that credit which was availed between April 2018 to March 2019 but not reported in the annual return may lapse. For this particular entry, taxpayers are advised to fill in their entire credit availed on import of goods from July 2017 to March 2019 in Table 6(E) of Form GSTR-9 itself," it added.

Issuing the clarification, the ministry further said many taxpayers have reported a mismatch between auto-populated data and the actual entry in their books of accounts or returns.

"It may be noted that auto-population is a functionality provided to taxpayers for facilitation purposes, taxpayers shall report the data as per their books of account or returns filed during the financial year," the ministry said.

AMRG & Associates Partner Rajat Mohan said, "Government has said that auto-population functionality of annual return forms is only for the purposes of taxpayers facilitation, thereby taxpayers need to compute and check all the records before filing of such forms. Government has also clarified that IGST paid at the time of import of goods in financial year 2017-2018 but availed in the returns of April 2018 to March 2019 would not lapse".

Goods and Services Tax (GST), which subsumed over a dozen local levies, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. The annual return GSTR-9 for the first year of GST implementation is to be filed by taxpayers by June 30, 2019.

The ministry had on December 31, 2018, notified the annual returns forms GSTR-9, GSTR-9A and GSTR-9C.

GSTR-9 is the annual return form for normal taxpayers, GSTR-9A is for composition taxpayers, while GSTR-9C is a reconciliation statement.

"All the taxpayers are requested to file their Annual Return (FORM GSTR-9) at the earliest to avoid last minute rush," the ministry added.