As taxpayers face technical glitches on the GST portal, the government said on Tuesday it was considering extending the tax payment deadline in April and had instructed Infosys to resolve the issue early.
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) informed that Infosys reported a technical error in the April 2022 generation of GSTR-2B and the automatic filling of GSTR-3B in the portal.
“Infosys has been instructed by the government to address the issue early. The technical team is working to deploy GSTR-2B and correct the autofilled GSTR-3B as soon as possible,” the CBIC tweeted.
GSTR-2B is an automatically generated Input Tax Credit (ITC) statement that is available to all GST registered businesses based on the information provided by their suppliers on their respective GSTR-1 sales form.
The GSTR-2B return is typically made available to businesses on the 12th of the following month, on which basis they can claim ITC while paying taxes and filing a GSTR-3B.
GSTR-3B is staggered between the 20th, 22nd and 24th of each month for different categories of taxpayers.
“Given the difficulties taxpayers are facing in filing their GSTR-3B for the month of April 2022, a proposal to extend the April 2022 GSTR-3B filing due date is under active consideration,” the CBIC tweeted.
On Sunday, the GST network, which provides the technological backbone for the goods and services tax, issued a recommendation saying that in some cases certain records are not included in the GSTR-2B return for the April 2022 period and asking taxpayers to submit a GSTR-3B return based on a self-assessment.
“The technical team is working to resolve this issue for the affected taxpayers and generate new GSTR-2B at the earliest. In the meantime, affected taxpayers interested in filing GSTR-3B are encouraged to file the self-assessment-based tax return using GSTR-2A,” the GSTN had said.
GSTR-2A is a system-generated statement of incoming shipments.
In 2015, Infosys was awarded a £1,380 million contract to build and maintain the GST system.
Rajat Mohan, Senior Partner at AMRG & Associates, said: “Technical glitches on the portal would wreck tax returns for millions of taxpayers in the current month. For the good of all businesses, the government must either extend tax return deadlines or waive late filing fees.”
