Finance Ministry Likely to Launch Annual GST Return Forms in Next Council Meet

New Delhi: The finance ministry is drafting an annual return form for the filing of the Goods and Services Tax that will be brought upon in the upcoming GST Council meet.

This will help the revenue department collect additional data from taxpayers. Sources in the finance ministry informed the form has to be filed additionally along with the existing monthly GSTR-3B.

This comes after finance ministry complained of not enough information being shared by taxpayers in the monthly GSTR forms. The new annual form will seek all business details to help the government maintain the invoice-wise database.

The return form will help the government with invoice matching thus aiding in cross-checking returns to avoid tax evasion. The form will also be useful in checking any wrong claims of credit and refunds.

According to media reports, the council is also likely to take up the possible inclusion of natural gas in the indirect tax regime during its next meeting.

“Petroleum is a considerably larger source for revenues not only for [the] Centre but states also and on [the] natural gas front, there is some consensus for bringing it into GST ambit and therefore, it could be the first petroleum product that could come within the GST network,” Dheeraj Rastogi, Joint Secretary, GST Council, said while addressing a PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry event.

“[We are] going to propose the inclusion of natural gas within the GST purview on an experimental basis in the forthcoming GST Council meeting,” Rastogi added, saying that this could be soon followed by the inclusion of aviation turbine fuel (ATF).

He, however, did not specify the tax bracket for natural gas if it was included in GST.

Currently, petroleum crude, motor spirit (petrol), high-speed diesel, natural gas, and ATF have been kept out of GST. However, several officials, including Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Indian Oil Corporation chairman Sanjiv Singh, had repeatedly said that petroleum products and natural gas should be brought under the unified indirect tax regime.