One Time Opportunity to File/Revise TRAN1 & TRAN2 Under GSTCA. Hitesh Jain

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The Tax Publishers One Time Opportunity to File/Revise TRAN-1 & TRAN-2 Under GST CA. Hitesh Jain 1. Introduction At the historic midnight session of both the houses of the Indian Parliament convoked at the Central Hall of the Parliament, the country embraced the new indirect taxation regime of the Goods and Services Tax [GST]. Since its introduction, the GST Council has been putting steady efforts in streamlining the legislation in line with the Government's idea of 'ease of doing business'. As part of the said process and consequent to the direction of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, the Government has now come up with a window to allow a one-time opportunity to tax payers to file or revise their transitional returns i.e., Form GST TRAN-1 and/or Form GST TRAN-2 [hereinafter called as ''form(s)']. 2. Background The GST law has subsumed various pre-GST regime levies imposed by Central and State Governments. In this process of convergence, the GST law has made necessary arrangements for the tax payers to carry forward the pre-GST tax credits [hereinafter called as 'credits'] under Chapter XX of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 [hereinafter called as 'CGST Act, 2017']. The arrangements were time bound in nature and were required to be filed electronically through Form GST TRAN-1 and Form GST TRAN-2 on the GST portal. Due to the nascent phase of implementation of GST law, tax payers have either faced various difficulties in filing their credit claims primarily due to technical glitches, wrong calculations, intricate form structure, eligibility issues etc., or has missed filing the claim itself due to limited/no awareness about it. Further, in the Finance Act, 2020, certain retrospective amendments were made in the transitional provisions w.r.t. the time limit of taking such credits. This has led to various litigations owing to the violation of Article 300A of the Constitution and such credits being an indefensible right of the tax payers, various writ petitions at the jurisdictional High Courts were filed by the tax payers in which relief was granted in majority of the cases. Thus, after the tax authorities have approached the Apex Court in this regard, the matter has been put to rest by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of i.e., "UOI & Ors v. Filco Trade Center Pvt. Ltd. & Anr." vide its order dated 22-7-2022 in which the Hon'ble Apex Court has issued the following directions :-- "1. Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) is directed to open common portal for filing concerned forms for availing Transitional Credit through TRAN-1 and TRAN-2 for two months i.e. w.e.f. 1-9-2022 to 31-10-2022. SUBSCRIBE FOR FULL CONTENT

The Tax Publishers

One Time Opportunity to File/Revise TRAN-1 & TRAN-2 Under GST

CA. Hitesh Jain

1. Introduction

At the historic midnight session of both the houses of the Indian Parliament convoked at the Central Hall of the Parliament, the country embraced the new indirect taxation regime of the Goods and Services Tax [GST]. Since its introduction, the GST Council has been putting steady efforts in streamlining the legislation in line with the Government's idea of 'ease of doing business'. As part of the said process and consequent to the direction of the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India, the Government has now come up with a window to allow a one-time opportunity to tax payers to file or revise their transitional returns i.e., Form GST TRAN-1 and/or Form GST TRAN-2 [hereinafter called as ''form(s)'].

2. Background

The GST law has subsumed various pre-GST regime levies imposed by Central and State Governments. In this process of convergence, the GST law has made necessary arrangements for the tax payers to carry forward the pre-GST tax credits [hereinafter called as 'credits'] under Chapter XX of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 [hereinafter called as 'CGST Act, 2017']. The arrangements were time bound in nature and were required to be filed electronically through Form GST TRAN-1 and Form GST TRAN-2 on the GST portal.

Due to the nascent phase of implementation of GST law, tax payers have either faced various difficulties in filing their credit claims primarily due to technical glitches, wrong calculations, intricate form structure, eligibility issues etc., or has missed filing the claim itself due to limited/no awareness about it. Further, in the Finance Act, 2020, certain retrospective amendments were made in the transitional provisions w.r.t. the time limit of taking such credits. This has led to various litigations owing to the violation of Article 300A of the Constitution and such credits being an indefensible right of the tax payers, various writ petitions at the jurisdictional High Courts were filed by the tax payers in which relief was granted in majority of the cases. Thus, after the tax authorities have approached the Apex Court in this regard, the matter has been put to rest by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the matter of i.e., "UOI & Ors v. Filco Trade Center Pvt. Ltd. & Anr." vide its order dated 22-7-2022 in which the Hon'ble Apex Court has issued the following directions :--

"1. Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) is directed to open common portal for filing concerned forms for availing Transitional Credit through TRAN-1 and TRAN-2 for two months i.e. w.e.f. 1-9-2022 to 31-10-2022.