The GST Council, in its 27th meeting held on 4 May 2018, approved the core principles for a new GST return design based on the recommendations of the Group of Ministers on IT simplification, with the objective of reducing compliance burden and improving ease of doing business. Under the proposed framework, most taxpayers, barring a few exceptions such as composition dealers, would file a single monthly return, with staggered filing dates linked to turnover to manage system load, while composition dealers and nil-return filers would be allowed quarterly filing. A key feature of the new system is the unidirectional flow of invoices, where sellers would upload invoices on a continuous basis and buyers would be able to view them in real time for availing input tax credit, eliminating the need for buyers to upload purchase invoices. The return design envisages a simple, user-friendly interface with automatic computation of tax liability and eligible input tax credit based on uploaded invoices, supported by offline tools to facilitate compliance. The Council also decided that there would be no automatic reversal of input tax credit for buyers in cases of tax default by sellers, with recovery primarily targeted at the defaulting supplier, subject to due process and safeguards for exceptional cases. Strong supplier-side controls and analytical tools were proposed to prevent misuse of credit, along with a phased transition to the new system, beginning with the existing GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 framework and gradually moving to invoice-based credit matching. These principles were to guide the finalisation of return formats, business processes, and legal changes, reflecting the Government’s intent to introduce a simpler, more transparent, and technology-enabled GST compliance system at the earliest.