• Notification Date: 28-06-2023
• Notification No: N/A

Industry Appeals for Amnesty Scheme to Resolve Tax Disputes

India’s Goods and Services Tax (GST) finally has been implemented, effective July 1, 2017, after a decade-long journey. Tremendous transformation happened to GST administration from its introduction of it. “Indian industry feels the time has come to unleash the next phase of reforms in GST administration and called for an amnesty scheme to resolve tax disputes”, according to a survey. 

The survey found an increased acceptance of the simplified tax regime amongst businesses, with 88 per cent of MSMEs reporting a reduction in goods and services costs along with optimised supply chains. To reduce the tax litigations, the Government introduced various amnesty schemes under different tax legislations, allowing the taxpayers to settle the pending litigation/ dispute on payment of pending demands/taxes, subject to certain relaxations. 

The GST Council has recently made recommendations which are notified about the Amnesty available to non-filers of Form GSTR-4. It was found by the survey that “80 per cent of business leaders said the government should introduce the next phase of GST regime reforms for enhanced ease of doing business and sectoral growth.” 

It urged the need for introducing an amnesty scheme, essential for resolving existing tax disputes that had tied up business capital and government revenue. 

The recent trends urged the implementation to expand the scheme’s scope to include GSTR-1, GSTR-9, and GSTR-10 and allow ITC of past periods where the time limit has expired. Majorly, options to revise returns must be provided to recipients of such ITC.