The Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) has recently issued a User Advisory addressing the procedure to be followed when the pre-deposit amount is auto-populated from the GSTN portal, and how to upload supporting documents in cases where an exemption has been granted by a higher court or where a variance is identified in the auto-fetched pre-deposit amount. The key aspects of the advisory are summarised below:
Auto-population of Pre-Deposit Amount
Where an appeal is filed using the ARN/CRN route, the pre-deposit particulars are fetched directly from the GSTN portal and cannot be modified by the appellant. In cases where ARN/CRN is unavailable, the relevant demand details are required to be entered manually.
Correction / Exemption Mechanism
The GSTAT portal provides a facility to address situations where (i) a higher judicial forum has granted relief from the statutory pre-deposit requirement, or (ii) the auto-populated amount differs from the amount computed by the appellant. In such cases, the taxpayer may opt for exemption or self-calculation correction and specify the relevant amount or percentage.
Upload of Supporting Documents
Taxpayers availing the above facility are required to upload appropriate supporting documents, namely High Court orders or self-calculation sheets, through the document upload functionality available on the portal.
Confirmation of Pre-Deposit Payment
After payment of the applicable pre-deposit on the GST portal, the GSTAT portal validates the payment and enables the appellant to proceed with the payment of appeal fees and completion of the filing process.
Reference of Payments Made through Form GST DRC-03
The advisory also reiterates that taxpayers who had discharged outstanding demands through Form GST DRC-03 instead of the designated “Payment towards Demand” facility may regularise such payments through Form GST DRC-03A. This mechanism enables linking of eligible DRC-03 payments with the corresponding demand orders and ensures appropriate updation of the liability register.
Further, GSTAT has also issued an advisory concerning online payment of court fees. It has been clarified that where the court fee payment has been made but the payment status is not immediately reflected as “Success”, taxpayers should allow up to 72 hours for status updation. Even if the status remains pending beyond this period, the portal will not restrict filing of the appeal, and any mismatch in payment status will be reconciled at the backend without adversely affecting the appeal process.