GST Council Meeting: Nirmala Sitharaman announces relief on late fee for GST return filing
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday chaired the 40th GST Council meeting via video conferencing. This was the first meeting of the GST council amid coronavirus lockdown in which the Finance Minister announced relief on a late fee for GST return filing.
She said that "For the period from July 2017 to Jan 2020, which is prior to the COVID-19 period, a lot of return filing has been pending. For all those who have no tax liabilities but who have not filed their returns between July 2017-January 2020, there will be zero late fee."
For those who have a tax liability, the maximum late fee for non-filing of GSTR-3B returns for period July 2017-January 2020 has been capped to Rs 500. This will apply to all returns submitted during July 1-September 30 this year.
For small taxpayers whose aggregate turnover is up to Rs 5 crore, the rate of interest for late furnishing of GST returns for February, March and April 2020, beyond July 6, 2020, the rate of interest is being reduced from 18 percent to 9 percent per annum and that is only till September 30, she announced.
"Small taxpayers whose aggregate turnover is up to Rs 5 crore will be provided a waiver of late fees and interest if they file the form GSTR-3B for the supplies affected in months of May, June and July 2020, by September 2020, no late fee or interest," she said.
In July, on the request of all the ministers, there shall be a meeting to discuss exclusively one agenda point i.e. "compensation cess". The compensation which has to be given to the states and if at all it results in some kinds of borrowing, how and who is going to pay for it, she concluded.
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She has also said that "Before the introduction of formula-based sharing of IGST between centre and states, there was a huge accumulation of IGST from 2017-'18, which led to an ad hoc decision of sharing accumulated IGST in two halves. This anomaly had to be corrected."
-PTC News
