The Ministry of Finance has set a deadline for GST Network to ensure that necessary measures are taken to implement the process reforms introduced in the 57th GST Council meeting last week, sources aware of the matter told TNIE.
Meanwhile, the GST Amendment Act, incorporating the changes introduced in the last Council meeting, will be introduced in the Parliament before April, 2027.
“The system needs to be upgraded to incorporate the changes. GST Network will be part of the reform process and we have set a deadline internally to ensure that system is updated accordingly and the progress will be monitored,” told an official from the Ministry of Finance, aware of the matter. GST Network will also provide support system to states to implement the proposed changes and the GST officers will act as a facilitator for businesses.
To implement the regulations of decriminalisation and removal of penalty, the Department of Revenue will be reviewing the risk rules and modify the same within the next three months, as per the official.
“Currently, under the existing regulation, more than 50% of the refunds are under the low risk rules and it is likely to go up further with the reforms. Risk rules will further be reviewed and modified within three months under the proposed reforms,” said the official.
GST Council has suggested a series of process reforms ranging from decriminalising of tax evasions, removal of arrest provisions, faceless assessment and many more. Regarding the removal of arrest provisions and decriminalization, official from the Revenue department said that for the prosecution of the ongoing cases, detailing will be done with an approach of consistency with the revised laws, said the official.
With the arrest provisions for the GST officers being removed under the new regulations, the officers will now look at the case and go through the evidences and documents to figure out if there is any element of criminality and any case of frauds will be analysed on an individual basis. The 57th GST Council meeting, chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman,
proposed simplifying compliance, expediting refunds, scrapping the power of arrest under GST and raised the prosecution threshold from Rs 1 crore to Rs 5 crore.