Ingram Micro Clarifies Channel Partner’s Concern on Late GSTR Filing

In a recent concern by channel partners on late GSTR file issue by Ingram Micro, the national distributor has come up with the clarification on the same.

Channel partners were concerned that Ingram Micro has delayed its filing its GSTR-1 for December 2020 in January. They pointed out that it results that all purchase ITC (Input Tax Credit) of partners cannot be utilised and the tax liability will be shifted on partners to pay till he gets the credit next month. The partner should ideally withhold payment for Ingram for the said amount.

In a conversation with DQ Channels, a channel partner shared his concern and said, “This is the effect of the new GST rule which needs to be challenged now, as it is not dynamic. It computes your liability on 12th that you need to pay on 20th of the month and this is happening when E-invoice is in place, we see the invoice on the day of the sale, but if vendor does not file timely consolidated return, the buyer is the loser.

Another partner said, “This will really be a serious issue in the financial management of every partner. The seller, be it a ND/SD/RD etc, if they don't file their returns within the stipulated time it will become a burden on the buyer till such time these sellers file their GSTR1 on time. The buyers are liable for penalty and interest." The partner added that in his opinion the buyers should not bill any material for the consecutive month from the defaulting seller. Also, their entire payment should be withheld till such time that partners get to know how much they have been penalised by the department. Otherwise, only the buyers have to bear the loss”.

However, asking on the same issue, Ingram Micro told DQ Channels that, there was a technical glitch on the GSTN portal, due to which the GSTR-1 data for a few states were populated on Jan 12th instead of Jan 11th. We promptly informed our channel partners about this issue. While the data was populated on Jan 12th instead of Jan 11th, customers can still claim the credit by manually editing the value while filing their GST returns. The credit can be as per GSTR-2A, if the same is not appearing in GSTR-2B. Therefore, there is no challenge of capital blockage for channel partners”.

If this was a technical error on the part of the GST Department, then the main issue here seems to be that the partners and Ingram Micro are suffering because of this technical problem made by the GST Department. Hence, the government should ideally take this into account and extend the GST filing date to 24th so that such errors can be rectified to everyone's satisfaction. The people should not suffer because of the government's fault.