Smaller enterprises yet to decode gst

CHENNAI: While the industry is all praise for the Goods and Services Tax (GST), small companies are finding it difficult to deal with the GST portal due to technical glitches. The GST is not about taxes alone, it impacts each business unit of a company. It affects every part of business right from financial reporting, accounting, supply chain, technology enabling, contracts redesign and tax compliances. Businesses are working on the transitional changes such as input credits, refund claims, exemption and more.

“The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) portal is a nightmare,” said Mahesh Kumar*, an employee who manages the finances for a beauty parlour in Vepery. “I tried filing the returns a couple of times and just could not do it. I finally had to give up and seek help from a Chartered Accountant (CA). Now he is the one who handles everything. Without him, we would be lost.”

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) conducted a survey of enterprises post the GST implementation in the months of November 2017 to January 2018. It cited the issues linked with the GSTN portal as one of the main reasons for procedural pain in the transition to the GST era.

  

Express spoke to a number of small businesses that had registered for the GST number and were grappling with technical issues and thus had to seek professional help.

“I never even tried filing the returns. I hired a CA to do it because it was too much of a headache,” said Mohammed Yakub*, the proprietor of a retail clothing outlet at Purasaiwalkam. “It looked so complex and complicated. It is not that I could not do it, but I knew it would take a lot of time and should I spend my time filing returns or concentrating on business?”

However, not all the companies have the resources to outsource this work and hence are spending hours trying to figure their way around using the portal and finding the path of least possible resistance when it comes to filing their tax returns on the site.

“I am really suffering and my business is taking a huge hit,” said Rekha Srinivasan*, owner of a small eatery in the city. “I don’t have the money to hire professionals. So my husband and I sit up and do it every night. It takes so much of our time and I come to work drained the next morning. I think I have no option but to set aside an amount for a professional because it is really taking a toll on us.” Even for those involved in the software business like Shaik Abdullah, who runs ICube Business Solutions, the portal is very tough to get the hang of.

“We have an accounts department that takes care of the filing, but they have been finding it so tough to file the returns on the portal,” Abdullah said. “We also faced a number of technical issues while filing the returns initially and ended up not filing for a couple of months because of that. Last month, we managed to update our filing and ended up paying nearly `10,000 as penalty,” he said.

The fine that is imposed on those who have not filed in the past is another reason that is keeping many small and medium businesses away from filing their returns. They are hesitant as they feel the backlog will cost them a lot of money and hence, they stay away from filing entirely. “This entire regime is very harsh on small and medium enterprises,” Abdullah said. “For those who are not familiar with filing returns online or even are not capable of reading English, it is extremely tough because all the communication is done in English. Getting professional help is the only way out, but how many of these enterprises have the money for that?”

Source::: Indian Express, dated 05/03/2018.