Gst practice

Advocates,  commerce graduates, retired commercial department officers also can practice in GST laws. 

Dear Mr.Ajit,

Goods and Services Tax is a landmark tax reform and is expected to be enforced next year. It would result in a paradigm shift in tax administration and system and is expected to allow seemless credit system and remove cascading effect of taxation. 

To address your query, in my view the apprehension that only CAs and CMAs are allowed to practice in GST regime is not true.  As you are aware lawyers can practice any law as a matter of right whereas professionals like CAs should be specifically authorised by the particular law to practice. I have been practising in the field of indirect taxes for about 15 years and have also authored a book titled "Goods and Services Tax - A Primer". I can tell you from my experience that GST is technology driven and compliance oriented law. Hence, initially for registration procedures and return filing etc CAs and CMAs would have good amount of work. Just as in Income Tax law obtaining PAN and return filing is predominantly done by CAs, in GST also CAs and CMAs would play a major role in compliance. 

Lawyers also have a great scope in GST regime as they can not only assist tax payers in routine compliance including registration, tax payments and return filing but they can also give legal advise to clients and other professionals like CAs/CMAs. Of course litigation may not be much in the initial years but would pick up later and hence it cannot be said that lawyers have no scope or role to play in GST. Many important matters may come up including Constitutional issues and legal interpretation, which may get settled only in the High Court or Supreme Court, where CAs and CMAs are not allowed to appear. 

In fact I am in the process of writing an article on opportunities for lawyers in GST regime, which I would share in this forum after it is complete. 

Thanks and best regards

K.S.NAVEEN KUMAR, ADV.

Thank you Mr K.S.NAVEEN KUMAR Ji, Actually, one of my Sr. Advocate from Hyderabad told me that Advocates have no scope in GST law, hence I was little worried, thank you very much for your explanation.

As far my knowledge, 95% of Non-CA tax professionals are not comfortable with GST  law and its present compliance structure, only ICAI and FM are agreeable to present  GST in present form, demonetization is major setback factor GST implementation. 

One question if you can answer, Who will do GST audit?

Dear Mr.Ajit

GST special audit is assigned to Chartered Accountants and Cost Accountants. Routine audit would be conducted by departmental officers and CAG. There are provisions to this effect in the revised model GST law (November version).

Kind regards

K.S.NAVEEN KUMAR, ADV.

can a retired banker get any opportunity in this GST kingdom