The Ministry of Finance has decided to put in place an IT-Grievance Redressal Mechanism to address the difficulties faced by taxpayers on account of of technical glitches on the Goods and Services Tax portal. An official statement said, “The GST Council has delegated powers to an IT Grievance Redressal Committee to approve and recommend to the GSTN (Goods and Services Tax Network) the steps to be taken to redress the grievance and provide relief to the taxpayer. The relief could be in the nature of allowing filing of any form or return prescribed in law or amending any form or return already filed.”

“However, where the problem relates to the individual taxpayer, due to localised issues such as non-availability of Internet connectivity or failure of power supply, this mechanism shall not be available,” the statement added. According to the statement, taxpayers should make an application to the field officers or the nodal officers where there is a demonstrable glitch on the common portal in relation to an identified issue, due to which the due process could not be completed on the common portal.

The IT Grievance Redressal Committee would then examine and approve the solutions. The statement also said the Finance Ministry has opened the window for 17,573 taxpayers who may be able to avail of ₹2,582.98 crore as Central GST credit and ₹1,112.77 crore as State GST credit. This has been made possible as those tax payers who could not complete the process of filing the TRAN-1 and GSTR 3B because of an IT-glitch would be allowed to complete the processes now.

The TRAN – 1 or Transfer – 1 form notes the balance of closing stock held by a business as on July 1, 2017 (last date of pre-GST regime). The TRAN -1 is elemental for claiming an Input Tax Credit on the old stock in the GST regime. The TRAN-1 could be filed and revised once on the GST Portal till December 27, 2017. The revised deadline for filing the same is now April 30, 2018. The deadline for filing the GSTR 3B for these cases has been extended to May 31, 2018.

The Finance Ministry statement however noted that the last date for filing of TRAN 1 is not being extended in general and only the taxpayers, who have been identified in terms of the circular issued in this regard, shall be allowed to complete the process of filing TRAN-1.

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