Taxpayers Avoid Delays in GST Payment Due to Penalty

The government had decided to extend the last date for filing the return for Goods and Services Tax (GST). The last date to file the return and payment was 31st March 2020 but was extended till 30th June 2020 by the Finance Minister Mrs. Nirmala Sithraman. The extension in date was made because of the outbreak of coronavirus, to ease the return filing procedure for the taxpayers. But, the government has imposed interest at the rate of 9% on the returns filed after 31st March which was charged at the rate of 18% for the delayed returns in the earlier cases.

Usually, the last date for filing form GSTR 3B Get to know details on GST return 3B form along with the online return filing procedure. Also, we mentioned GSTR-3B due dates, penalty & general queries. Read More for any month is the 20th of the next month, but the government had extended the last date to file the returns under form GSTR 3B for the month of March, April, and May 2020 till the last week of June 2020. A lot of assessees having an annual turnover above Rs. 5 Crores are focusing on filing the return before 31st March 2020 as they find the interest rate of 9% to be ‘a little too much for them’.

The assessees having an annual turnover of less than Rs. 5 Crores are not charged any interest but some late fees and penalties will be charged for the late payments. But those having more than Rs. 5 Crores are to be charged interest at the rate of 9%. The assessees whose tax liabilities are large will be charged a larger interest on the late payments. So, those large taxpayers having sufficient funds to pay, are trying to pay the tax liabilities on time. The partner at Dhruva Advisors, Ritesh Kanodia said, “The industry has taken a mixed approach to the delayed return filing, depending upon the cash flow situation. The comparison which is done is the 9 percent interest (on late payment of GST) and the interest on the bank loan. However, filings have slowed down on an overall basis”.

Read Also: Due Dates of GST Payment with Penalty Charges on Late Payment Check out due dates of payment under GST for general and composition taxpayers in India. We have included penalty charges on late payment with interest.

A lot of taxpayers have loans on their heads too, so they are facing some troubles in paying the installments of loans and the tax liabilities. Some assessments are confused about whether they should be paying their employees” salaries or should pay their tax liabilities instead. The Managing Partner at Avinav Consulting, Nidhi Goyal said, “Those SMEs which have enough cash flow to pay salaries would like to pay GST liabilities on time and save on the 9 percent interest cost that they otherwise would incur”. Other businessmen are taking proper steps to meet the compliance despite the extension of dates as they want to help the Goods and Services Tax Network by making the payments.

A partner at AMRG & Associates, an accountancy firm, said that the GST Network is running evenly and smoothly unlike the previous times around the due dates when the people find filing the GST returns Get to know the online procedure of filing GST returns in India. We provide each and every GST form according to the taxpayers category. to be hard. The co-founder and director at Busy Infotech, Rajesh Gupta said, “Due to lockdown, business transactions have been reduced and left with only 10-20 percent in total, so accordingly, the load on the network is less as compared to normal. So the network is working smoothly and helping taxpayers to work at home. It has enabled almost more than 20,000 registrations within 10-13 days of the first phase of lockdown”.