Income-Tax portal showing GST turnover to better compliance: Govt

The (I-T) income tax forms notified for the the current assessment year (AY 2020-21) makes it mandatory to report GST outward supplies.

The revenue department on Monday clarified that the GST turnover details available to taxpayers on income-tax portal (Form 26AS) is aimed at providing additional information to the assessees without any extra compliance burden.

Further, the details would force dishonest taxpayers to report correct GST turnover and pay the resultant income-tax on it. The department said that data analytics has detected several cases where a person shows “turnover of crores of rupees in GST and doesn’t pay a single rupee of income tax.”

The I-T system generates Form 26AS for each assessee which till a year ago had limited information related to tax deducted at source and interest income from saving bank accounts.

However, from this year onwards, the scope of information available has been expanded to turnover from GST-registered businesses, cash deposit/withdrawal from saving bank accounts, sale/purchase of immovable property, time deposits and credit card payments, among other transactions.

The (I-T) income tax forms notified for the the current assessment year (AY 2020-21) makes it mandatory to report GST outward supplies. “Therefore, the information displayed in Form 26AS would provide ease of compliance to the taxpayers in filling Schedule GST,” it said. It added that there would be no change in the reporting requirement with the display of information of GST turnover in Form 26AS because the honest taxpayers are already furnishing GST and income-tax returns.

The new Form 26AS is also expected to weed out filers who are involved in fake invoice rackets as their income tax profiles are not commensurate with GST turnover. “These persons in most of the cases never file their income tax returns or disclose meagre taxable income in the income tax return,” the department said.

In a nationwide drive launched against fake invoice scams a week ago, the revenue department has made 25 arrests 1,180 entities. “Fake invoicing is now been handled with very serious measures as this results into substantial leakage of both direct tax and indirect tax revenue,” the department said.