The main item on the agenda for the GST Council meeting on Friday is likely to be the simplification of the return filing system into a single form and a decision on whether businesses can avail of provision credit or not, according to tax analysts.

According to the GST law, the return filing process involves three forms — two of which have been kept in abeyance to ease the compliance process for businesses. The GST Council is to decide on how best to reduce these into a single form.

“Tomorrow’s [Friday] meeting will primarily deal with the revised returns issue,” “The Sushil Modi-led Group of Ministers met with all the stakeholders over the last one month, such as CII, FICCI, and some select indirect tax experts, and received inputs from them. So that’s what the Council will discuss, which model of return filing to go for,” he added.

So far, there are two models of return filing under consideration, with the key difference between the two being whether businesses can avail of provisional credit when the supplier has not yet filed returns, or if they can only avail of the credit based on the returns filed. #casansaar (Source - PTI, The Hindu)