Post by: Sreeram Viswanath in GST
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Issue of Summons under GST
Issue of Summons under GST
A summon means an act of ordering someone to be present. The concerned GST officers can summon any registered person to appear with some evidence or documents, as the case may be. The purpose of this article is to provide some guidelines and precautions on the issue of summons under GST.
Guidelines
- The authority shall issue the summons only as a strategy of last resort, in the case of an assessee not co-operating.
- The tone of language of the summons must not be harsh and legal which may lead to undue mental stress to the receiver.
- If a Superintendent wants to issue a summon, he must avail the prior written permission of an officer whose rank is equal to or higher than that of an Assistant Commissioner.
- Where for operational reasons, it is not possible to obtain such prior written permission, oral/telephonic permission from such officer must be obtained and the same should be reduced to writing and intimated to the officer according to such permission at the earliest opportunity.
- The officer issuing summons must either submit the recordings of the summons or record a brief of the proceedings, for submission to the officer who had authorized to issue the summons.
- Senior management officials of the likes of a CEO, CFO, or a General Manager must not be issued summons abruptly. The entity can issue the summon only on indications of their involvement in the decision-making process which led to the loss of revenue.
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Precautions
- There must be a proper justification to issue the summons. The power to summon can be exercised only when there is a need for the appearance of the assessee.
- The entity shall avoid repeated summoning. The recordings of the statements made by the accused shall reflect in the least possible number of appearances.
- The candidate’s significance of time and effort must be respected and summons must be done on time, except in cases where it is a matter of strategy.
- The authority shall assess the statements by the assessee only during the office hours, however, with subject to a few exceptions.
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