Late Fee Waiver from GST Late payments

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) announced a conditional waiver of the late fee had been provided for taxpayers as a relief to businesses amid the pandemic on June 27, 2020.

Earlier, the CBIC had announced a waiver of late fee as a result of the key decisions taken by the GST Council on June 12, 2020, in case of the limits of Rs.500 restricted to specific turnover limits, and the interest due to the payments and extension of due dates for businesses to file Goods and Services taxes (GST) returns for the COVID -19 effects till October 2020. 

Assesses obligated towards any tax liability to submit their GST returns, have an opportunity to submit returns with a late fee of maximum Rs.500, subject to the submission of returns by July 1, 2020.

Such Small taxpayers having aggregate turnover up to the value of Rs.5 crores will be given a waiver the late fees and interest, on filling the form GSTR-3B for their supplies affected in months of  (May, June, and July) by September 30, 2002. 

During the COVID period(Feb, March, April) 2020, the interest late return fillings by the small taxpayers with a turnover up to Rs. 5 crores, will be reduced to 9% from 18%, if the returns of inward supplies are filed till  September 30.

Taxpayers having aggregate turnover up to 5 crores in the previous F.Y. , whose principal place of business is in the states of  Chhattisgarh, M.P., Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telengana, Andhra  Pradesh, the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar Island or Lakshadweep the returns for August has to be filed by October 1, 2020.

For taxpayers, with turnover more than 5 crores in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab,  Haryana, Rajasthan, UP, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya,  Assam, W.B., Jharkhand or Odisha, the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Chandigarh or Delhi the returns have to be filed by October 3, 2020.

Nevertheless, the legal due date for filing the returns has remained the same, i.e. 20th of each month, it has been explicitly clarified to the trade that the waiver of late fee is conditional to the filling of the said tax period by the due date.

Though the waiver of late fee is a good step towards giving encouragement to the stressed businesses during the times of global pandemic, the (CBIC) has stated: “a blanket exemption of late fee would be biased to the taxpayers who already submitted their GST returns for February, March and April GST sales in the extended due date of June 24”.

Author:

eStartIndia Team