One of the forms taxpayers need to keep track of is titled 'annual returns'. A taxpayer is required to file this under Goods and Services Tax (GST) system. For annual returns, filing GSTR-9 is a must. This form is required to be filed once every year by registered taxpayers such as Chartered Accountants (CA) and businesses. The due date for filing GSTR9 for fiscal year FY19 is set as December 31, 2019. Notably, GSTR9 deadline is set for December end every year. However, GSTR9 for FY18 fiscal, the deadline was extended by government to June 30, 2019. 

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With the annual return filing deadline around the corner - 30th June 2019, all businesses and CAs are scrambling to match their data and prepare the return. the problem is compounded as the size of business grows and enterprises are struggling to manage the entire process. 

To ensure that CAs and businesses file their GSTR9 form hassle free, a Bangalore-based financial technology platform ClearTax has luanhced a new software. 

Archit Gupta, Founder & CEO, ClearTax, said, “Today, CAs and businesses with small turnover are struggling to keep up with the workload. Hence, we have launched a reliable and simplified version of return filing that will help CAs as well as Businesses to file a GSTR-9 in a convenient manner. All they have to do is just click a button to import their data from the government website, answer a few questions about the nature of business, review the GSTR-9 report if needed and then finish filing with a few clicks. We have already done initial tests with  a small group of CAs and the markets has shown an outsize interest in our software and have already started filing 1000s of return per day already.”

Chartered Accountants are already finding this software very helpful in filing GSTR9. 

CA by profession and Partner at Dhanuka Jalan & Co., Sandeep Kumar Jalan said,  “We chose Cleartax GSTR-9 solution as it highlights problems with the return before filing, this was a critical requirement for us as the return cannot be modified once filed”

Meanwhile, CA by profession and Partner at Jain M Prasad & Co., Prakhar Jain said,  “The excel interface supports all functions like control C, control V etc. it makes it very easy for me and my staff to work interchangeably on excel and ClearTax.”

What needs to be furnished in GSTR9?

GSTR-9 form is an aggregated summary of all GST returns from July 2017 to March 2018 including amendments and supplier invoices which could be entered till March 2019. 

Businesses are expected to correctly match all 21 months of GST data with their accounting books, identify mismatches and file GSTR-9 accordingly. 

The easy-to-use ClearTax's GSTR-9 software will help the user to:

  • One-click download of all the returns filed for 21 months.
  • Compare the turnover and ITC amounts as per books and look out for mismatches.
  • Go inside each of the tables with the in-built audit trail to each line item in B2B, B2Cs, B2CL, NIL/Exempted, Credit and Debit notes, Amendments, Advances & Adjustments.
  • Excel-like software screen for working online and with GSTR-9 form.
  • A  summary table to get the exact additional tax payable if any basis the overall GST liability minus the tax paid amount.
  • Auto-filling all tables of GSTR-9 as per filed returns including even those tables that are not auto-filled on the GSTN portal.
  • A simple 15-point checklist to identify potential errors in the GSTR-9 form with suggestions for the tables that need to be updated for correcting the errors.
  • One click GSTR-9 data upload to GSTN and filing with the new and advanced ClearTax Assistant for GSTR-9 .