Govt. did not try out GST system before rollout: CAG

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its first ever audit of the Goods and Services Tax, has said the government had failed to try out the system before its rollout, leading to inadequate compliance mechanisms, and lower tax revenues. The report was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
The report pointed out that the keystone of the tax system, the invoice matching system, had not yet been put in place even two years after the GST rollout. It added that compliance in terms of the number of returns filed had been falling month after month, and that the government had not been following the rules set out regarding the transfer of revenue to the States.
“Even after two years of rollout of GST, system validated Input Tax Credit through ‘invoice matching’ is not in place and non-intrusive e-tax system still remains elusive,” the report, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, said.
“The complexity of the return mechanism and the technical glitches resulted in rollback of invoice-matching, rendering the system prone to ITC [Input Tax Credit] frauds,” the CAG said. “Without invoice matching and auto generation of refunds, assessments, etc. on the whole, the envisaged GST tax compliance system is non-functional.”

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