Department of Revenue under Ministry of Finance of Government of India has on 22nd February, 2024 come out with a notification on sharing of GST related information. The same is yet to be published in the Gazette of India. The Gist of such Notification is given hereunder:
Background:
Section 158A was previously inserted in Central Goods and Services Tax Act through Finance Bill, 2023. This section gave powers to Government to notify a common portal in which all particulars furnished in the application for GST registration by any person; the details of outward supplies and such other details as may be prescribed can be placed. This amendment came so that GST department can share such information with such other systems as may be notified by Government. However, some restrictions were placed on such sharing. The restrictions are as follows:
- for sharing of those details of a supplier which are given under clauses (a), (b) and (c) of sub-section (1);
- for sharing of those details of a recipient under clause (b) of sub-section (1), and under clause (c) of sub-section (1) only where such details include identity information of the recipient
In both the above cases, consent of supplier or recipient, as the case may be has to be obtained in such form and manner as may be prescribed.
This amendment also obligated that “no action shall lie against the government or common portal with respect to any liability arising consequent to information shared under this section and there shall be no impact on the liability to pay tax on the relevant supply or as per the relevant return.”
Hence, this sharing of information on common portal cannot change the impact or liability to pay tax.
The current topic deals with the above given amendment itself.
Recent Notification:
The Central Government, in recommendation with GST Council has now notified a “Public Tech Platform for Frictional Credit”.
This platform has been linked with enterprise-grade open architecture information technology platform, conceptualised by the Reserve Bank of India as part of its “Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies” dated the 10th August, 2023. Reserve Bank Innovation Hub, a wholly owned subsidiary of RBI has developed this platform. Application Programming Interface (API) framework is used to make it.
Benefit: This move will help borrowers get hassle free loans so would facilitate quicker loan processing by providing lenders with shared GST related information. It will also enhance the credit efficiency by minimizing costs and the time required for loan processing. Moreover, it would also become difficult for borrowers to hide any important information that lenders may need.
