Rajasthan tax consultants drag government to court over GST glitches.

MUMBAI: A group of tax consultants has filed a writ petition against the Centre and state governments in the Rajasthan High Court, alleging unpreparedness in implementing the Goods and Services Tax.

The court issued notices to the Centre and state governments based on the claims made by theRajasthan Tax Consultants’ Association in the petition. The issues include modification of compliance requirements, not charging interest, penalty, retrospective effect to late fee waivers, composition window and incomplete utility forms.

The government is required to respond to the show cause notice by September 13.Industry experts said the court’s decision in the matter could impact future indirect tax cases.


The petition was filed by advocate Sanjay Jhanwar, who argued that the GST Portal is not ready and is throwing up several glitches. The GST Portal is where registration, filing of returns, uploading of invoices and payment of taxes can be done. He questioned the need to thrust the “clinical trial” of the new system on businessmen, saying it was causing “inconvenience” and “peril.”

Industry experts have raised concerns about the government’s timelines for several processes related to the tax regime, which came into force on July 1.


“There is an urgent need for more stable timelines in the return filing framework as frequent changes in dates make it difficult for businesses,” said MS Mani, a partner at Deloitte Haskins and Sells. “Since businesses are getting used to the new return filing processes in GST and also have to deal with other tax compliance obligations, it is necessary to frame timelines that are realistic for businesses.”

ET reported on August 17 that a missing column in the new GST form to claim credit on sales made before July 1 had caused worries ahead of the filing deadline for the first month of tax returns under GST in September. Although the cut-off date was eventually postponed, several companies complained that this could lead to working capital problems for them.