Bizmen, tax professionals jittery over GST portal shutdown on July 1

Shivani Bhakoo

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 29

Confusion prevails among traders and businessmen over the recent news that on July 1, 2018, the GST portal will not be available from 9 am to 9 pm.

Traders and tax professional say if the GST portal will be shut, their work will be stalled. They said they might not be able to generate e-way bills for the transportation of intra-state or inter-state goods.

Mohit Aggarwal, a taxation lawyer (IT/GST), said a section of the media had reported that the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) would not be available on July 1 i.e. the first anniversary of the GST. “This means that the tax payers will not be able to access the portal for 12 hours. But there is no clarity on how to generate the e-way bills? Though it is generated through NIC, on Friday, the site remained unavailable from 12:30 pm to 4 pm and not even one e-way bill was generated. If this will be the scenario on July 1, there will be total chaos,” said Aggarwal.

The lawyer said tax professionals were fed up to the teeth with changes, poor infrastructure, delay in filing returns, and unnecessary formalities of the GST.

However, FOPSIA president Badish Jindal said the government might update the system. “May be the government wants to make amendments to the current system that is why they are shutting the portal. But it should not create any problem in generating e-way bills,” said Jindal.

The GST was implemented in country on July 1, 2017. The new indirect tax law mandates compulsory filing of returns online (electronic mode). However, people have been complaining of glitches in the GST portal ever since then.