Speed up work to enrol dealers for GST, says industry
Dated 28th December, 2016
Tamil Nadu Chamber of Commerce and Industry appealed to state commercial taxes department to expedite works on enrolling VAT dealers into the goods and services tax (GST) register.
The trade and industrial body, in a statement, observed that the Union finance minister had announced that GST would be enforced throughout the country from April 1st, 2017 or within three months thereafter.
All existing tax payers already registered under central excise, service tax, VAT, entry tax, luxury tax and entertainment tax have to get GST enrolment within the specified period announced by the Centre. In Tamil Nadu, GST enrolment for VAT registered dealers starts from January 1 to 15.
The enrolment is a completely paperless online procedure through the official website gst.gov.in. A separate GST portal has been created for the purpose. When logging into the GST portal for the first time, the user name and password supplied by the commercial tax department must be used. If the tax payer does not have it, he should contact the concerned commercial tax circle.
While filing enrolment application, the tax payer has to upload several specified documents like first page of bank passbook, IFSC details and proof of business. In addition, he must mention proper e-mail address and mobile number while enrolling as they will be used by the GST authorities for future communication. After completion of online enrolment, the system will generate an Application Reference Number (ARN) which should be preserved carefully for future use. After generation of ARN, the provisional GST registration certificate will be available on the portal. After verification of the documents submitted, the final registration certificate will be provided within six months. The forum has appealed to the commercial tax department to expedite issuing user ID and passwords for all VAT dealers in the state so that GST registration could be carried out within the allotted time.
(This article is published in Times of India on 28 December 2016)