New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman held a meeting with chartered accountants and traders' body to address concerns raised on the process of filling Goods and Services Tax (GST) and make them more user-friendly.

Representatives of Rajasthan Tax Consultants' Association, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and Laghu Udyog Bharti were present during the meeting. Officers from the Department of Revenue and GST Network (GSTN) also took part in the meeting.

"Nirmala Sitharaman would like to thank ICAI, CAIT, Laghu Udyog Bharti, Rajasthan Tax Consultants' Association and other professionals for their valuable inputs on simplification of GST forms and returns," office of Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted.

In a follow up tweet, it said that based on today's consultations, Sitharaman has directed that extensive nation-wide consultations should be held on the new GST return system to be launched from April 2020.                                                                                                                   
The aim of conducting this meeting was to simplify the filing of GST and make it more user-friendly.

During the meeting, a live demonstration was conducted wherein the representatives tried to file returns and expressed their concerns during the exercise.

To make people contribute to GST without any confusions, Sitharaman has asked the revenue department to conduct meetings, workshops and exercises across the country on December 7. The new return forms will come into effect from April 2020.

The meetings will also be a medium to obtain feedback on the new return system proposed to be rolled out in April 2020.

According to reports, there has been a steep decrease in GST collections. Revenue is falling short of the Rs 1 trillion target for the third straight month in October. It was 5.3% lower than that in the month of October 2018 with Rs 95,380 crore.