The Government, on September 4, 2018, notified the format for filing annual return for both regular dealers (GSTR-9) and composition dealers (GSTR-9A). The new annual return is supposed to be simpler and easier for taxpayers, but a closer scrutiny of the format shows there may be some areas of contention.

GST Law mandates all taxpayers, except casual taxable person or non-resident taxable person, input service distributor, person liable to deduct TDS, to file annual return for the period July 2017 to March 2018 by 31 December 2018.

The following takeaways from the recently introduced annual return format (i.e. GSTR-9) will make it clear that taxpayers would need to make a note of certain new provisions.

a) Annual return is divided into 6 parts with 19 tables, which requires taxpayers to report summary of outward supplies, inward supplies, tax paid, particulars of demands and refunds, HSN summary etc.

b) Majority of the information to be filled in the above tables are based on information reported in GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 for the period July 2017 to March 2018 and therefore, some of it also gets auto-populated.

c) Table 6 of GSTR-9 requires taxpayers to classify the total input tax credit (ITC) availed as ITC on input, capital goods and input services. It is important to note that such classification was not required in GSTR-3B. This is a new bifurcation that a taxpayer would need to make.

d) Table 8 of GSTR-9 requires taxpayers to report the reconciliation between the credit claimed in GSTR-3B and GSTR-2A available on GST portal.

e) Table 18 of GSTR-9 mandates taxpayers to report HSN wise details of inward supplies. Taxpayers again will have to note that such HSN wise details for inward supplies was not required to be reported in GSTR-3B. This again is a new requirement as HSN codes were being given only for output supplies and not for inward.

“Appropriate four-eye review of information to be submitted in the Annual return would be required, specially as the format mandates submission of new information like providing HSN wise details for inward supplies, reporting reconciliation between credit claimed in GSTR-3B and GSTR-2A and classifying total input tax credit (ITC) availed into ITC on input, capital goods and input services,” says Harpreet Singh, Partner, Indirect taxes, KPMG.

f) Part V of GSTR-9 requires taxpayers to provide details of transactions reported between April’18 to September’18, which pertains to FY 2017-18. For instance, credit note/debit note issued between April’18 to September’18 for invoices issued in FY 2017-18.

g) Inward supplies from composition dealers, deemed supply from job workers etc. are required to be reported separately. Thus, one needs to be very sure of the profile of the supplier in order to correctly classify them for the purpose of Annual Return.

h) Input tax credit reversed and reclaimed in FY 2017-18 to be separately reported in Table 6H of GSTR-9. For e.g. ITC is reversed on account of non-payment of consideration within 180 days. Subsequently, when the payment is made the said ITC is re-claimed. In this case, thus far, dealers were reclaiming the credit under the normal ITC. However, for the purpose of Annual return, such re-claimed credit of ITC needs to be identified an disclosed separately.

“From prima facie perusal of the Annual Return format, it appears that any additional liability arising out of error/omission in GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B cannot be paid at the time of filing annual return. This could be a setback as Industry was looking forward to rectifying all inadvertent mistakes at the time of filing the annual return,” adds Singh.