Goods and Services Tax: Beyond audit & scrutiny, dual control still a grey area

The states and the Centre may have crossed the first hurdle of evolving a consensus on the long-pending issue of division of control over taxpayers in the ninth meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, but the decision on cross empowerment – a key feature aimed at negating the possibility of an assessee being approached by the tax administrations of the Centre and the respective state – might end up being restricted to just the processes of scrutiny and audit. For other processes under GST such as refunds, export rebates, remission and recovery of arrears, the possibility of ‘dual control’ looms large, which could translate into higher compliance costs and uncertainty for assessees.