13. Every tax payer who wants to avail the facility of e-payment will access GSTN for generation of the Challan through which payment is to be made. The following methods for creation of draft challan for GST payments are recommended:
a) By Registered tax payer or his authorized person by logging on to GSTN Common Portal where basic details (such as name, address, email, mobile no. and GSTIN) of the tax payer will be auto populated in the challan;
b) By authorized representatives of tax payers by logging on to the GSTN Common Portal where after the list of registered taxpayers represented by him will be displayed. He can select any tax payer on whose behalf he proposes to pay GST and challan
details for such tax payer will be auto
populated;
c) By grant of temporary Registration number by any one Tax authority on GSTN Common Portal which can be used by both the tax authorities for facilitating tax payments on behalf of an unregistered person. Such a situation can arise during enforcement action by a tax authority and this temporary registration can be later converted into a regular registration number (GSTIN) if the tax payer has a regular GST liability to discharge after the enforcement action (detailed procedure described in Para 78 below);
d) By creation of a challan without requirement of USER ID and Password, for enabling payment of GST by a registered or an unregistered person on behalf of a taxpayer as per the directions of the tax authority using the GSTIN (like the present provision under Service tax). In this method, GSTN would provide for a validation check (like CAPTCHA) so that challan can be created by a person and not by machine.
14. The issue whether challans should have provision for entering jurisdictional location ( e.g. Commissionerate, division and range) was discussed in detail and it was decided that the same will not be mentioned in the challan. Instead, the Tax authorities would send the Taxpayers updated master data to GSTN as well as to Accounting Authorities. The incremental changes in the said master would also be sent on real time basis by the Tax authorities to GSTN and Accounting authorities. As challan would not have a jurisdictional location code, the Accounting Authorities would use the TAXPAYER Master received from Tax authorities for mapping the challans with the Jurisdictional PAOs / tax authorities’ offices by having a suitable mapping mechanism.
15. Upon creation of the draft challan, the taxpayer will fill in the details of the taxes that are to be paid. The challan page will have sets of mandatory fields, which the user has to provide. The tax payer will have the option to pay CGST, IGST, Additional Tax and SGST concurrently. The tax payers can partially fill in the challan form and temporarily “save” the challan for completion at a later stage. A saved challan can be “edited” before finalization. After the tax payer has finalized the challan, he will generate the challan, for use of payment of taxes. The remitter will have option of printing the challan for his record. The challan so generated will have a 14-digit (yymm followed by 10-digit) Unique Common Portal Identification Number (CPIN), assigned only when the challan is finally generated, this will help the portal and other authorities in identifying the challan. The CPIN would be a running serial number to be initialized every calendar month. After the challan is generated, it will be frozen and will not be allowed to be modified. The CPIN/challan so generated would be valid for a period of seven days. In case of payment through Mode III, CPINs would remain live with RBI for a period of 30 days. GSTN would purge all unused CPINs on the day immediately after the date on which the validity period is over (i.e. 7 days if Mode I or II is selected and 30 days if Mode III is selected for payment). At the end of each day (EOD), GSTN would send all the CPINs generated on that day to the Accounting authority of the Centre and to those accounting authorities of the states that so desire. The suggested format of the challan is appended at Annexure – IV which is a common format for all three modes of payment. Since the challan would be prepared electronically, chances of errors will be minimal. However to deal with challan correction in exceptional circumstances, a challan correction mechanism, prepared in consultation with the office of Pr. CCA, CBEC is detailed in paras 123 and 124 below.
16. Since there are three modes of payment, the tax payer has to choose the epayment mode. This mode will also cover payment by Credit/Debit Card which can be used only after log in on the GSTN.
17. Once e-payment mode is selected, options will be shown to taxpayer to choose between Internet Banking and Credit / Debit Cards for making payment. In case Internet Banking mode is selected, a field with drop down box detailing names of various authorized banks, registered with GSTN for Internet Banking, would be displayed. The taxpayer will have option of choosing his preferred bank for Internet Banking. Credit and Debit Cards of all banks shall be accepted. However, the payment gateway services should be obtained by GSTN from the authorised banks or their payment gateway SPVs only. To encourage competition, preferably more than one such gateway should be provided on the GSTN portal, with display of their respective charge rate and service performance level. The taxpayer can choose any of the gateways available on the portal for making the payment. The exact charge should be calculated separately by the gateway service provider. The gateway provider should collect this amount separately over and above the challan amount. The challan amount should be fully credited to respective Government accounts maintained with the authorised bank (acquiring bank for CC/DC payments), while the gateway charges should be retained back by the gateway provider. The Government/GSTN should procure the payment gateway services from the authorised banks (or their SPVs) through an appropriate competitive process to keep the charge rates low. The Committee also deliberated the issue of charge back claims in case of credit card based payment, and felt that the possibility of such claims on payments to the government is minimal and manageable, especially in view of implementation of two-step authentication norm by the banks. In addition, the taxpayer would be required to pre-register his credit card, from which the tax payment is intended, with the GSTN system. GSTN may also attempt to put in a system with banks in getting the credit card verified by taking a confirmation from the credit card service provider. The payments using credit cards can therefore be allowed without any monetary limit to facilitate ease of doing business. In the event of such claims, recommended standard operating procedure, prepared in consultation with RBI, is enclosed as Annexure-V.
18. In case of Payment Gateway, the first choice for a taxpayer would be to select the card type to be used for making the payment. Upon choosing the card type, the taxpayer would be displayed available gateway service providers servicing the card type. Once a taxpayer chooses a gateway, the interface of the gateway would be invoked. Alongside, GSTN will forward the same electronic string as was passed for Internet Banking (details in para 19 below). The service provider will capture and verify the card details and debit the challan amount and additional gateway charges from the card holder. The Payment Gateway service providers are expected to build their interface with GSTN common portal to capture challan amount breakup in terms of CGST, IGST, Additional Tax and SGST. Along with the interface, associated accounts for CGST, IGST, Additional Tax and state-wise accounts for SGST should be created by the Authorized banks associated with the gateway service providers. The breakup received from GSTN common portal will be used to credit the amounts received under respective accounts created for the purpose. The Committee noted that in respect of credit card payments, presently the acquiring bank is permitted to transfer the amount to the merchant on T+3 basis. Thus there may arise some situations where the taxpayers account has been debited on T+0 basis whereas Government’s account in authorised bank would be credited on T+3 basis. It was informed by RBI that this time could be reduced to T+1 basis by suitable negotiations with the payment gateways. It is recommended that suitable negotiations may be carried out by the Accounting authorities and RBI with payment gateways to credit the amount on T+1 basis.
19. In case of payment through Internet Banking, once the taxpayer chooses a particular bank for payment of taxes, GSTN will direct him to the website of the selected bank. Alongside, GSTN will forward an electronic string to the selected bank carrying the following details for each challan on real time basis:
a) GSTIN;
b) CPIN;
c) Challan Amount;
d) Break Up of the Amount into CGST, IGST, Additional Tax and SGST ;
e) State/UT Government to which SGST remittance pertains.
GSTN in consultation with banks would decide about the requirement of merchant code as a GSTN identifier.
20. Taxpayer will make the payment using the USER ID and Password provided by the bank to enter into the secured e- banking area of his bank. He will select an account for debiting the total tax amount and authorize the payment. While making the payment, the bank will display the breakup of total amount payable into CGST, IGST, Additional Tax and SGST and seek confirmation from the user. No change in the break up as well as the total amount would be allowed on the Bank’s portal. In case the user wants to change the break up or the total amount, he should abort the transaction and go back to GSTN portal from the bank’s portal and reinitiate the process.
21. After the successful completion of a transaction, e-FPB of the concerned bank will create a unique Challan Identification Number (CIN) against the CPIN. This will be a unique 17-digit number containing 14-digit CPIN generated by GSTN for a particular challan and unique 3-digit Bank code (MICR based which will be communicated by RBI to GSTN). The incorporation of the date of payment in the CIN may be examined from the IT’s perspective. This CIN, as a combination of CPIN and Bank Code, will be reported by the banks along with its own Unique Bank reference number (BRN). Such CIN is an indicator of successful transaction and will be used as a key field for accounting, reconciliation etc. by taxpayers, accounting authorities and tax authorities. After every successful e-payment transaction, there will be an instantaneous reverse flow of information through an electronic data string from the collecting bank to the GSTN containing the following details:
a) CIN;
b) GSTIN;
c) Bank Reference number (BRN);
[Since there could be maximum of four credits against one debit, banking practice may be ascertained by GSTN. If such transactions (i.e. four credits against one debit require multiple BRNs i.e. one for each credit entry), all BRNs should be reported.]
d) Challan amount;
e) Date of Payment;
f) Time of Payment
22. If the transaction cycle is not completed because of failure of credential verification, there would be no response from the bank to portal informing about the same. If a response (positive or negative) is not received by GSTN within the stipulated period (few minutes), there would be a feature in GSTN to re-ping the bank system and seek a response against CPIN. There may be a scenario in which the internet banking transaction is successful, but the connection drops before the control comes back to GSTN portal, and the re-ping facility will help in finding the status of such transactions.
23. Upon receipt of confirmation from the bank regarding successful completion of the transaction, GSTN will inform the relevant tax authorities about payment of taxes. A copy of the paid challan (downloadable/printable) with auto-populated CIN, date and time of payment and a statement confirming receipt of the amount by the bank will be provided to the taxpayer by GSTN.
24. Thereafter the tax paid challan (CIN) will be credited to the tax ledger account of the taxpayer. It was discussed and agreed by the Committee that there would be 20 ledger accounts (one for each Major heads i.e. CGST, IGST, Additional Tax & SGST and 4 Minor heads for each Major Head i.e. Interest, Penalty, Fees & Others).