The revenue department has expressed “serious concern” over delay in migration of excise and service tax assessees to the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and asked field officers to complete the process by 31 March.

The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), the apex policy making body for indirect taxes, in a communication to the field formations has asked the zonal chief commissioners to submit a weekly progress report beginning 6 March.

In early January, the CBEC had asked field officers to migrate all existing central excise/service tax assessees to GST portal by 31 January 2017.

“It is a matter of serious concern, that while the migration figure is in range of 50 to 90% for majority of states/union territories, the migration with respect of central excise/service tax assessees through CBEC is a paltry 2.94% in central excise and 8.22% in service tax,” the CBEC said.

For central excise taxpayers, the process of migration to GST had started since 20 January, while for service tax assessees, it begun on 9 February.

The CBEC has asked field officers to contact assessees via phone/email who are yet to activate their provisional GST IDs and encourage them to migrate without further delay.

“I would urge all field formations to conduct more seminars and training in local language to encourage taxpayers to migrate early by 31 March. Advertisements may also be brought out in local newspapers, TV channels, FM radio channels in vernacular language to ensure greater reach,” the CBEC said.

The government plans to roll out GST from 1 July and in the run up to the new indirect tax regime, it has started migrating excise, service tax and VAT assessees to the new tax payment portal.

As many as 80 lakh such assessees are to be migrated to the GST portal. Permanent Account Number is mandatory for migration to GST. If an existing excise or service tax assessee does not have a PAN, then the same has to be obtained from the income tax department.

“The progress of migration to GST is being closely monitored at the highest level. I would urge you to bestow your personal attention and ensure speedy and smooth migration of the remaining excise/service tax asseesses without further delay,” CBEC said.

The CBEC has also started 24X7 help desk to help assessees migrate to the new portal. Once the existing registered taxpayers log in to CBEC’s Web Portal www.aces.gov.in, a facility will be given in a secure manner to access the provisional login ID and password given by Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).

Thereafter, using the same, they can log on to the GST portal (www.gst.gov.in) to fill the requisite fields and submit scanned documents. This migration process is for excise or service taxpayers who are not getting migrated through state VAT.