 "Group of Ministers on GSTN flags issues in GSTR-2 filing")
At a meeting of the Group of Ministers on the functioning of GSTN, it was felt that the focus of the portal should now be on invoice matching done through filing of GSTR-2, for which the last date is October 31.
"We have flagged the issues being faced by businesses in various states. There are problems regarding uploading the returns and matching invoices. This the first time GSTR-2 is being filed and hence there are issues," said Modi.
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So far, nearly 12 lakh businesses have filed GSTR-2 returns. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was rolled out on July 1.
The panel assigned more functions to GSTN which handles the technology backbone for GST as well as IT major Infosys, responsible for the back-end processes.
"GSTR-2 is more challenging because there will be matching of invoices. As many as 45 crore invoices were uploaded in GSTR-1 which have to be matched," Modi added.
While sales return or GSTR-1 was filed until October 10, it has to be matched with purchase return GSTR-2.
The primary focus of GSTN so far has been registering taxpayers in GST, making the files GSTR-3B, GSTR-1 and composition of dealers. Now, GSTN will focus on GSTR-2.
The GoM also raised the issues faced by businesses in different states and asked Infosys to deploy their engineers there.
"We had earlier asked Infosys to deploy engineers in major states by October 30. They have done so in 9 states and sought time till November end to deploy in other states," Modi said.
Infosys has already deployed more than 100 IT people in their team for GSTN functioning.
Modi said that the GoM has given a mandate to Infosys and GSTN to make the IT system more user-friendly.
"There should be more pop up messages, more offline utilities, editing facilities for businesses transacting on the portal," he said.