Bengal finance minister urged arun jaitley to call urgent meeting of GST council

New Delhi – Amit Mitra, the finance minister of West Bengal, has written an urgent letter to the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asking for a GST Council meeting. The meeting would address the issues that the small-scale taxpayers are facing due to the implementation of GST. The issues include the technical errors which the taxpayers have faced while trying to file the return.

In the letter, Mitra has expressed his demand to look into the situations that are on the ground and offer a guideline for the future. He has tried to remind the council about the unpreparedness of GST implementation.

However, no one has paid any attention to him. The next council meeting is due on 9th of September. He also prompted that he had requested for a white paper that would eventually address the issues related to GST implementation. Also, the paper would highlight the various shortcomings in the entire GST system. However, Mitra confirmed that there had no action been taken so far.

The Bengal finance minister has tried to draw the attention of Arun Jaitley on the issue of a technical error which the taxpayers faced. The GST Council has been forced to extend the last date of GST return filing due to the technical error. GSTN has faced a huge rush on Saturday which might have led to the technical error. Many taxpayers have complained that they were unable to file the return.

Other than the GSTN portal, some complaints on the money transfer through bank has been raised too. Mitra said that the same portal would be reached by 1.5 crore people next month around the same time. Whether the portal would be able to withstand the rush is a question which Mitra has raised.

He added that the enrolment of practitioners, cancellations of amendments and applications and other related issues are yet to be addressed. He has also said that the taxpayers with less than 20 lakh turnover are yet to be able to cancel their registrations. The last date for the return filing is on 28th August. Mitra has expressed his doubt whether the time is enough to deal with such complex task.