Finance Ministry on Wednesday announced setting up the Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) to resolve issues related to the Goods & Services Tax (GST).

The Committee intends to resolve grievances in a time-bound manner, and all the activities will be displayed on dedicated portal.

This action is follow-up to decision taken by the GST Council on December 18. It was decided that GRC will be constituted at Zonal/State level with both CGST and SGST officers, including representatives of trade and industry and other stakeholders (GST practitioners and GSTN etc.). These Committees will address grievances of specific/general nature of taxpayers at the Zonal/ State level.

According to a Finance Ministry statement, the Committee at Zonal/State level will have Zonal Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief Commissioner of Central Tax and Chief Commissioner/Commissioner of State Tax as co-chairs. Up to 12 representatives of various trade bodies, and up to four representatives from prominent Associations of Tax Professionals like Chartered Accountants, Tax Advocates, Tax Practitioners etc., will be nominated as the members of these committees.

Nodal officers of ITGRC (Information Technology Grievances Redressal Committee) of the Central Tax and State Tax, and representative of GSTN handling the concerned Zone/State will also be part of the committee.

The Additional/Joint Commissioner of office of Zonal Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief Commissioner of Central Tax and an officer nominated by the Chief Commissioner/Commissioner of State Tax will act as the Secretaries of the GRC.

Resolving grievances

The Committee will examine and resolve all the grievances and issues being faced by the taxpayers, including procedural difficulties and IT-related issues pertaining to GST, both of specific and general nature.

It can refer any issue requiring a change in Act/Rules/Notification/ Form/Circular/ Instruction, etc., to the GST Council Secretariat and the relevant Policy Wing of the CBIC (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Custom). IT-related issues will be referred to GSTN.

Whenever a GST policy related issue is referred by a GRC, the concerned Policy Wing of CBIC would examine the said policy issue, and if required, would make suitable recommendation on process the same for placing it before the GST Council for its consideration/approval.

Likewise, if the matter is related to IT-related issue pertaining to GST portal, the same would be resolved by GSTN in a time-bound manner, preferably within one month.

The stakeholders will send their grievances/suggestions to the Secretary of the Committee, who shall place the same before the Committee. Further, the Secretary of the Committee shall also submit a quarterly progress report to the GST Council Secretariat as well as to the GST Policy Wing, CBIC.

Dedicated portal

For time-bound handling of grievances and accountability, GSTN will develop a portal for recording all grievances (including their scanned images) and their disposal.

It will be the responsibility of the Co-chairs of the GRC to ensure the timely entry of the grievances and updating the status of their disposal on the portal.

The nodal officers of GSTN, Policy Wings of CBIC and GST Council Secretariat will also be able to update status of action taken at their end. The details of action taken on all issues will be displayed on the portal, which will be available for viewing to all stakeholders to check the status of the resolution.

Tenure

The Committee will be constituted for a period of two years, and the term of each member will also be for a period of two years.

Any member of the Committee who is absent for three consecutive meetings, without adequate reasons, will be deemed to have been withdrawn from the Committee, and his place will be filled by a fresh nomination by the Principal Chief Commissioner/Chief Commissioner of Central Tax in consultation with the Chief Commissioner/ Commissioner of State Tax.

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