Changes made in GST Portal and GST Act in July 2020

All the GST Amendment and GST Portal related changes in July 2020 has been presented below.

1. GST AMENDMENT IN JULY

1. Notification No. 58/2020 - CT dated 007.2020:

CBIC amends GST Rule 67A which specifies Manner of furnishing of NIL return (GSTR 3B) or NIL details of outward supplies (GSTR 1) by short messaging service facility.

Explanation - For the purpose of this rule, a NIL return shall mean a return u/s 39 for a tax period that has nil or no entry in all the Tables in FORM GSTR-3B.'

2. Notification No. 59/2020 - CT dated 13.07.2020

Extended due date of GSTR-4 (GST composition scheme Annual return) for Financial Year 2019-20 to 31st August 2020 which earlier was 15th July 2020.

3. Instruction - CBEC-20/06/11/2020-GST dated 17.07.2020

Deemed approval of GST registration application during COVID/lockdown period­ & thereafter.

• During Covid scenario CBIC came up with Instruction dated 17th July, 2020 stating that deemed approvals have been granted for all those applications pending as on 30th June, 2020, which had not been processed till 15th July, 2020.
• It has been further decided that applications received thereafter which remain pending as on 28th July, 2020 shall be deemed approved on 31st July 2020.
• From 01.08.2020 deemed approval of registration as amended via N/N16/2020 - CT dt 23.03.2020 shall be resumed.
• During the lockdown period, where registration applications have been deemed approved on the portal due to technical glitches, wherever required, proper officer may get the physical verification of the premises done.

Note: CBIC came up with the N/N 35/2020 - CT 03.04.2020 which is further amended by N/N 55/2020-CT dt 27.06.2020 (CBIC extends due date of specific compliances to 31.08.2020) where in specific exception was kept for Section 25 of the CGST Act, 2017. But with this instruction CBIC has come up for the welfare of public at large.

4. Clarification Regarding Sanitizers Reclassified As 'Disinfectants' to attract GST @18%

In press release issued by PIB Delhi as on 15.07.2020 it was stated that Hand sanitizers attract GST at the rate of 18%. Press release classifies the sanitizers in the category of disinfectants like soaps, anti-bacterial liquids, Dettol, etc. and therefore holds that it shall attract the rate of 18%.

5. GSTN issues Advisory on Interim measure for Filing Revocation of Cancellation Order

• IIn case your application for revocation of cancellation of registration was rejected by the tax authorities before 12/6/2020 and you wish to avail the benefit of RoD order 01/2020 dated 25.06.2020, as an interim measure, you can request the appellate authority or the higher authority to pass a simple offline order on it for the restoration of the application.
• Based on such order, your jurisdictional authority can restore the application for revocation of cancellation. You need to apply post- login: - Registration- Restore Registration- Restore Revocation.

You have to enter ARN of the order and would require to upload a scanned copy of the order passed after clicking 'Appeal in favour'.

• GSTN is working on to remove the present restriction on the reapplication of the revocation of the cancellation application. After that filing of revocation of application would become a one-step process. It is expected to be available shortly. The above-suggested solution is an interim measure./span>

6. Notification No - 60/2020 dated 30th July 2020 -

9th Amendment in CGST Rules - FORM GST-INV-01 has been substituted.

Format/Schema for e-Invoice - It has been divided in 12 Sections

7. Notification No - 61/2020 dated 30th July 2020

1. E-Invoicing Provision is applicable from 1st Oct 2020 as per NN 13/2020 -CT for the registered person having the aggregate turnover in a financial year > Rs 500 Cr (Amendment vide NN 61/2020)
2. Now E-Invoicing provision will not be applicable on SEZ as well. Other than SEZ following are already exempted from the E-Invoicing requirement which is specified in the NN 13/2017-

2. CHANGES IN GST PORTAL

1. Filling Form GSTR 4 Annual return by composition taxpayers is available on GST portal from 21.07.2020 w.e.f. 01.04.2019. The due date for filing FY 2019-20 Return is 31st August 2020'.

2. GSTN is implementing the procedure prescribed by CBIC for registration vide circular number 20/6/11/2020-GST dated 17.07.2020. Status of pending applications will be updated on 21.07.2020

3. Introduction of new FORM GSTR 2B which like the GSTR 2A will have details of purchases of the company or business with added information on input tax credits. GSTR-2B referred as auto-drafted ITC statement to provide advice on credit that can be availed, credit to be reversed etc.

4, Reconciliation/ Matching tools: New features likely to be added in the new improved version of the existing return system include a matching tool for comparison of GSTR 2A with purchase register, the communication channel between buyer and seller.

5. CHANGES IN GSTR 1

• Delinking of Invoice and Credit and Debit Notes: Once this change is implemented on GST portal, you would no longer need to provide invoice number as a reference in every debit or credit note.
• Additional data fields for CDN: Following additional Data Fields will be provided for Debit and Credit Notes
  • Place of Supply
  • Reverse Charge
  • Invoice type (B2B, DE, SEWP, B2CL etc.)
• Modification in GSTR 1: Amendments in GSTR-1 will be tagged with original invoices to ensure there are no double accounting entries.
• Adding of Month to Amended Invoices: Status of 'amendment in the invoice' will be reflected along with the month in which the amendment was made earlier it was not showing it's month of amendment.

6. CHANGES IN GSTR 2A

• Delinking of Invoice and Debit and Credit Notes: This will mean with delinking in GSTR1, when purchase invoices are populated in your GSTR2A there will no longer be one to one (or many) mapping between debit or credit notes and invoice. Hence reconciliation by netting off credit notes against an invoice will not be possible.
• Input credit of GST paid on import of goods or services was not getting reflected anywhere in the GSTR-2A.
• Additional Info in GSTR 2A: Following additional info will be provided in GSTR 2A:
  • GSTR3B filing status
  • GSTR 1 filing period of the supplier, filing date of supplier
  • Date of cancellation of supplier
  • The period in which 'original invoice' is visible in case of amendment
  • Type of amendment
• Reduce error on part of taxpayers by improving the process of linking GSTR1 with GSTR3B and GSTR2A data with GSTR3B for flow of ITC.

7. GSTR 1 and GSTR 3B will be linked together and liability calculated in form GSTR-3B will be linked to the invoices filed in form GSTR-1 of the assessee.

8. Details in Table 8A of GSTR-9 are auto-populated from the GSTR-1 filed by the supplier.

Note Above article is only for education purpose and not to be considered as any opinion of the author