THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The state GST department is working on a faceless adjudication system, one that would minimise favouritism and corruption with very little physical interaction.
Finance Minister K N Balagopal announced Rs 3-crore initial funding for the system during the budget discussion in the assembly on Thursday. As per the plan, the system will be modelled on the ones implemented by the income tax and customs departments.
An adjudication process begins with the SGST department issuing a show-cause notice (SCN) to a taxpayer citing non-compliance or shortfall. After the taxpayer submits an explanation, a mandatory personal hearing is conducted by the adjudicating authority.
At present, adjudicating authorities work on a jurisdictional basis. Meaning, the authority would be the jurisdictional officer in the taxpayer’s pin code, irrespective of the office that served the SCN. However, the new system will exclude the taxpayer’s jurisdictional adjudicating authority and the case would be randomly allocated to an adjudicating authority from any district to ensure the authority has no prior knowledge about the taxpayer.
Fair and timely disposal of cases would be the new system’s highlight. The random allocation will help the department distribute cases evenly among its 500-odd officers working as adjudicating authorities. At present, the volume of cases handled by officers in some districts are much less than others. The new system would also provide officers an opportunity to handle cases related to different sectors.
The department’s audit wing sends an average of 600 notices, the intelligence wing sends over 800 notices and the scrutiny wing sends around 2,000- 3,000 notices in a year.
One of the biggest changes under the new system would be online personal hearings. Written submissions can be submitted through the portal.