Availability of Excess TDS credit under GST regime

Case Details:

Issue- In the above case, the petitioner has challenged the impugned ex-parte revision order  passed under section 108 of the Jharkhand Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, at its preliminary stage itself and even without forming its independent reasoning for disallowing the amount as transited in TRAN-1 and simply copy paste the audit observation and even without giving an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner passed the order and consequential Demand Notice in Form GST APL-04 being No. 694 dated 31-7-2021 under rule 109 B, 113(1) and 115 of the Jharkhand Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017 raising a total demand of Rs. 1,60,02,196.69/- including penalty and interest therein.

Held- It was held that the issue involved in this case is “whether the petitioner is entitled to migrate in its electronic credit ledger the credit of amount of Excess Tax Deducted at source under section 45 of the JVAT Act, 2005 amounting to Rs. 1,19,41,937/- available as on 30-6-2017 under section 140(1) of the JGST Act being ” a credit of the amount of the Value Added Tax’ which a registered person is entitled to migrate in its electronic credit ledger”. The court cannot ignore the fact that unadjusted TDS amount would have been otherwise refundable to the Petitioners if the same were not allowed to be carried forward as excess input tax credit in the statutory format of quarterly return being Form JVAT 200. We have examined the format of quarterly return, wherein vide column 61, unadjusted TDS amount has been treated as input tax credit amount and was required to be carried forward in the next succeeding months. The Petitioners at the time of filing of their returns were left with no option but to forward the unadjusted TDS amount as excess input tax credit in the succeeding months and were not required or compelled to claim refund of unadjusted TDS amount. Thus, at this stage, the Respondents cannot contend that unadjusted TDS amount cannot be allowed to be migrated in terms of Section 140(1) of the JGST Act. Even otherwise, the stand of the Respondents is self-destructive, as if the Petitioners are not allowed to migrate the unadjusted TDS amount under the GST Regime, they would have become entitled for refund of the same with effect from 1st July, 2017 and would have certainly been entitled to statutory interest @ 9% on the said amount in terms of Section 52/53 of the JVAT Act.”