Tax dept gives six-month breather to industry on GST compliance

Revenue authorities to go slow on enforcement as they want industry to settle down into new regime

Revenue authorities will go slow in undertaking enforcement actions under GST for the first six months as they want industry to settle down into the new indirect tax regime.

Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairperson Vanaja Sarna said there will be genuine errors due to lack of understanding in the initial days.

"CBEC has enforcement authorities and I have specifically said that the first three to six months are a go-slow.... I don't want small cases to be made," Sarna said at a CII event here.

She said people will take time to fall in line and CBEC has to encourage them to come into the fold.

"With the kind of input tax credit (ITC) being offered, assessee base will widen. I'm definitely not looking at any hard line attitude to start with, we would want it to settle down," Sarna said.

She said CBEC has been hand-holding traders and businesses to make Goods and Services Tax (GST) a success.

"We would like it to be a complete success and we have enough legacy work in enforcement to be busy and we are not plunging into this now," she said.

Under GST, rolled out on July 1, businesses have to ensure various compliances as the new rules have to be followed strictly.

Sarna said the twitter account set up to answer queries by industry has been getting 13,000 queries per day.

Admitting that GST implementation has not been glitch free, Sarna said the CBEC will come out with second round of FAQs to clarify the issues related to GST.

CBEC had constituted 18 sectoral groups to look into various issues faced by different sections of industry.

Of these, three groups have submitted their report. The law committee is examining the reports, Sarna said.

"We are not looking to dismantling these working groups and they would assist the industry in the problems they face in the GST regime," she said.