The move comes after Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman directed the board to roll out the non-intrusive compliance verification system for GST returns.

The module enables officers to scrutinize GST returns of Centre Administered Taxpayers, selected on the basis of data analytics and risk identification by the system. Discrepancies associated with returns risk are displayed to the tax officers.

"The implementation of this Automated Return Scrutiny Module has commenced with the scrutiny of GST returns for FY 2019-20, and the requisite data for the purpose has already been made available on the officers' dashboard," the ministry said.

The module offers tax officers a workflow to interact with taxpayers via the GSTN Common Portal to communicate discrepancies identified under FORM ASMT-10, receipt of taxpayer's response in FORM ASMT-11 and subsequent action, such as issuing an order of acceptance of reply in FORM ASMT-12 or a show cause notice, or initiating an audit/investigation.

The ministry hopes that the implementation of this module will help to streamline compliance verification and reduce the need for intrusive checks.