Bengaluru: There will not be any further extension in filing returns for GSTR-3B after December, and appealed to taxpayers not to file them on last date of filing, according to Union Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia.
“We have already extended the period for GSTR-3B to six months. People have to file their own self-assesed summary return till December, and there will not be any extension of time as far as GSTR-3B is concerned,” Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia told reporters here after the first meeting of the Group of Ministers (GOM) that was formed to tackle the IT-related glitches.
Adhia replied thus after he was asked whether the government intends to further extend time for filing returns under GST.
The GST Council, earlier, had allowed businesses to file GSTR-3B till December.
He said the government earlier had decided to extend the time limit to have a proper learning period due to GSTN portal hiccups. “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” he added.
Modi also said it would be only by October 30 that the government would be able to iron out 70-80 per cent of the technical issues being faced by stakeholders in return filing.
Replying to a query, Adhia said the meeting was very fruitful because it led to a better understanding among all stakeholders. “Any new system will be afflicted with some initial hiccups, but the attempt today was to work around difficulties faced by stakeholders in filing returns with on GSTN platform,” he said.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi, who heads the GoM, said only 3.3 lakh people have filed their GSTR-3B in August, while there are 85 lakh dealers registered under the new tax regime. “Further, evn for the previous month of July, only 46 lakh taxpayers have filed their 3B returns so far,” Modi said.
Bihar Deputy Chief Minister said India’s GSTN is the biggest in the world with minimal human interface.
He said as of now, 22 crores of invoices have been filed which shows the robustness of GST regime. Modi also said as many as 23.18 lakh new dealers have been registered, and another 11 lakh dealers under composition scheme.
GSTN, portal for real-time taxpayer registration, migration, and tax return filing under GST, faced problems, forcing the government to extend the last date of filing returns. Modi appealed to taxpayers, not to wait for for the last date to file returns.
He also said GoM will meet once in every 15 days. Asked will Infosys, the service provider, will be penalised for the glitches the stakeholders are facing, Adhia said the company has not failed and it is media presumption. “There is always initial hiccups and issues, but there haven’t been largescale failures,” he said.
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. Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey and GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar also reportedly attend today’s meeting.
The government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi implemented GST nationwide earlier this year. The GST was adopted to make easier for businesses to move goods from one state to another, which it was not the case in the earlier central and state tax regimes.
However, GSTN, the system supposed to handle the filing of the returns, suffered glitches due to the rush of filing invoices as the deadline approached.
