GST online registration: Traders experience technical glitches on day one even as launch date nears

The rollout of India’s biggest indirect tax reform the Goods and Services tax (GST) is just a few days away, but traders already had a tough time registering themselves on the portal on the first day on Sunday. The GST online portal http://www.gst.gov.in launched by by the Union government failed to open till 2 pm on Sunday and did not accept the One Time Password (OTP) necessary for registration, complained traders. [caption id=“attachment_3735055” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  GST web portal screengrab[/caption] “People all over India were waiting for June 25 as it was announced that the online registration will begin on the GST portal on that day. I opened the portal for online registration at 10.10 am, but it did not open till 2 pm,” The Indian Express report said quoting City activist Ajay Jagga, who also wrote to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley about the technical glitches faced during registration. Although the GST portal opened after 2 pm, the OTP was sent on the phone and not on email, IE report said quoting Jagga. Last week, the government had said e-commerce operators and TDS deductors will be able to register with GST Network beginning 25 June. GSTN, the company providing IT backbone for the new tax regime, will offer another opportunity to existing tax payers to migrate, five days before the rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST), it said. Out of the 81 lakh existing assessees, over 65.5 lakh have already migrated to the portal. Registration with the GSTN is necessary for doing business in the GST regime as businesses will have to upload monthly supply data as well as file return forms on this portal. “People should not panic. If you are left out, you will get another opportunity because the law says anybody who is registered under taxes which are subsumed under GST if they have a valid PAN then they will be given a valid registration,” GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar said. The GSTN portal was open from 8 November till 30 April and then again for 15 days in June for enrolment of existing taxpayers. It is now open again from 25 June 25 for a period of 3 months for existing taxpayers registered under Central Excise/Service Tax/VAT etc, the statement said. With agency inputs