The government on Saturday ruled out giving more time after December for filing tax returns by businesses under the Goods and Services Tax.
“We have already extended the period for GSTR-3B...People have to file their own self-assessed summary return till December, and there will not be any extension of time as far as GSTR-3B is concerned,” Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said.
GSTR-3B is a simple return form introduced by the Central Board of Excise and Customs for the month of July and August, following the roll out of the new tax regime from July 1.
Adhia was speaking to reporters in Bengaluru after the first meeting of the group of ministers formed to tackle technology-related glitches in GST network. Earlier, the hiccups had prompted the government to extend the time limit.
“It decided to extend the timeline of filing GSTR-1, from September 10 to October 10. The last dates of filing returns for GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 are October 31 and November 10, respectively,” Adhia said.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the group of ministers, said it would be only by October 30 that the government would be able to iron out 70-80 percent of the technical issues being faced by stakeholders in filing returns.
He said only 3.3 lakh people filed their GSTR-3B in August, while there are 85 lakh dealers registered under the one-nation tax regime. “Further, even for the previous month of July, only 46 lakh taxpayers have filed their 3B returns so far.”
India's GST network is the biggest in the world and 22 crore invoices have been filed so far, he said. As many 23.18 lakh new dealers have been registered, and another 11 lakh dealers were under ‘composition scheme', the GoM chief said.
Appealing taxpayers not to wait for the last date to file returns, he said the GoM would meet once in every 15 days.
Asked if software major Infosys, the service provider, will be penalised for the glitches the stakeholders are facing, Adhia said the company has not failed. “There are always initial hiccups and issues, but there haven't been large-scale failures.”
Kerala Finance minister Thomas Isaac, Chhattisgarh minister of Commercial Taxes Amar Agrawal, Karnataka Agriculture minister Krishna Byre Gowda and Telangana Finance minister Etela Rajender are other members of the GoM.
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