While interest
on late filing of Feb-Apr GST returns has been halved, for May-Jul filing,
deadline has been extended till Sep.
Illustration:
Uttam Ghosh
In a relief to small
taxpayers with turnover up to Rs 5 crore, the GST Council on Friday halved the
interest on delayed filing of GST returns for February, March and April to 9
per cent, provided the returns are filed by September 2020.
Also, the deadline for filing returns for May, June and July has been
extended till September, without any interest or late fee, Finance Minister
Nirmala Sitharaman said after a meeting of the council.
Asked about revenues in the
two months of lockdown, Sitharaman said, "The states understood where the
collections were. It was in the range of about 45 per cent only."
Finance
secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said every state is fully aware of how much money
they are getting every month.
"It
is not a question of we are informing them, Centre and states are together
discussing how much revenue we are getting every month. These revenues are not
final figures.
"Since the date of filing returns have been extended, so we will
get correct picture of actual amount of tax that we get in April, May and June,
that will be known only after the last date is over”, Pandey, who is also
Revenue Secretary, said.
With lower Goods and Services Tax (GST) mop-up, the Centre has not
released the collection figures for April and May.
Conventionally, GST revenue collection data of a particular month is
made public on the first day of subsequent month.
In March, the government had extended the deadline of filing returns for
GST for three months -- March to May -- to the end of June without any late
fees, penalty and interest for enterprises with turnover less than Rs 5 crore
to provide significant relief for MSMEs.
On Friday, Sitharaman said for small taxpayers with aggregate turnover
up to Rs 5 crore, interest on delayed filing for the months of February, March
and April has been lowered to 9 per cent from 18 per cent, provided returns are
filed by September 30.
For May to July, the deadline for filing GST returns has been extended
till September 30, without any penalty.
Sitharaman said no late fee will be levied for delayed filing of GST
returns by registered entities with nil liability between July 2017 and January
2020.
Briefing reporters after GST Council meeting, she said late fee for
non-filing of monthly sales return for others has been reduced to a maximum of
Rs 500 for July 2017 to January 2020 period.
The GST Council - the apex decision making body of the indirect tax
regime - discussed impact of COVID-19, she said.
Inverted duty structure hitting GST collections was discussed, she said,
adding the panel was looking at correction of duty inversion in footwear,
fertiliser and textiles.
She said discussion on taxing pan masala will hopefully be taken up at
the GST Council's next regular meeting.
A special one-agenda meeting will happen in July to discuss compensation
requirements of state, she added.
"While there was not much for larger businesses, the late fee
waivers and additional moratorium for smaller businesses is quite a welcome
move," EY tax partner Abhishek Jain said.
With the current financial flu, smaller businesses were aggressively
seeking stimulus and some of their requests have been well considered by the
council, he added.
"The government is faced with a tough balancing act. On one hand,
it needs robust GST collections to help meet its regular plus the extraordinary
nature of expenses during the pandemic.
"On the other hand, businesses are looking for reliefs from
Government to help them tide the major disruptions, loss of revenue and
uncertainties. The announcements made in today's GST council meeting are a
reflection of the tight balancing act," Deloitte India senior director
Saloni Roy said.
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Economy