1.6 lakh new businesses register on GSTN in 4 days

As many as 1.6 lakh businesses that were previously not registered for either VAT, service tax or excise duty have enrolled for Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the past four days.

As the GST Network portal reopened for the third time registration for both new assessees and existing excise, service tax and VAT payers on June 25, businesses rushed to get themselves registered ahead of the July 1 rollout of GST.

“Since June 25, 1.60 lakh applications for fresh registrations have come in. Of this 53,000 applications have been completed with details of business. The rest are in process,” GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar told PTI here.

New businesses have 30 days for registering on the GSTN portal beginning June 25.

In first two rounds of registration window, about 66 lakh out of existing indirect tax payers of 80.91 lakh had registered with GST Network, the IT backbone for GST.

Kumar said there were many businesses in sectors like tax, sugar and diamond that were earlier not registered with the state tax department and are now registering.

Although businesses with turnover of up to Rs 20 lakh are exempt from GST and hence registration is not mandatory, traders and manufacturers are preferring to get themselves registered so that the input tax credit can be passed on in the supply chain.

Also, on an average, 40,000-50,000 applications from existing excise, service tax and VAT assessees have come in, taking the total enrolment figure to nearly 68 lakh.

[Source”timesofindia”]