Time is an investment; monitoring team a daily exercise

Mr X, a talented and hard working professional, got a notice from the department to pay GST, late filing fee and penalty of Rs 645,800. He was shocked to see this notice. He rushed to his tax consultant. The proprietor of the business Mr X said that he had been filing all returns on time.

Question is why this happened when all were timely doing their jobs. After doing an internal scrutiny of the work, the reason emerged –

Mr X is very passionate about his work. As a result he ignored if compliances had been done by his staff or not. He is an artist engaged in his pursuit of the art. His passion is getting him good orders and business. His quality of work is also one of the best.

Second, Mr X never checked if the bills are raised in a proper manner. Were these bills raised in time? Were all purchase bills  collected and given to the department concerned in his establishment?  He never checked if returns are being filed in time or not and If returns carry authentic information. Third, he never checked, whether information given for GST is the same or different. A post-notice analysis revealed there was a huge difference between income tax filing and GST filings. Not even time limit was adhered to. Returns were filed late. Date was taken incorrectly.

The result was predictable. The department found a huge mismatch in income tax return and GST calculations. Based on available data, the department calculated all late filings, interest and penalty in the demand note.

Consequences are for all to see. Mr X is running from pillar to post knocking all doors of the tax department.  GST and income tax consultants are trying to resolve the issue. They are spending time to find out details of bills, work done, information sent to all to find out where the mismatch originated from. He is spending time with his own departments to find out the information provided. He is asking for bills which were not given by him to various clients. He is trying to find out how he could not collect the full amount of his work done. He has lost a number of assignments which he was getting continuously because he was busy in his office firefighting. A few clients gave their jobs to others as they were in urgent need of the work done.The net result is Mr X lost his mental peace, got stressed, lost lots of business, paid extra GST and even paid bribes to get rid of all sudden problems. His clients turned away to his rivals. He lost revenue, profit and business.

What was the mistake? Only one – time management. For saving a small amount of extra fee, he hired nonprofessionals for his work.