On Sunday 29th August 2021, the Finance Ministry has extended the last date for availing of the GST Amnesty Scheme, under which taxpayers were liable to pay a decreased fee for delay in filing monthly returns by 3 months till November 30.
The GST Amnesty Scheme was introduced by the GST Council, headed by Nirmala Sitharaman (Finance Minister) and other Ministers of State in May to provide late fee relief to taxpayers for any pending returns.
The capping of INR 500 is there per return for taxpayers having nil tax liability and who missed filing GSTR 3B for July 2017 to April 2021.
For those having tax liability, a maximum late fee of ₹ 1,000 per return will be charged if such returns are filed by August 31, 2021.
In view of the council’s decision, on June 1, the ministry decreased the late fee for non-submission of form GSTR-3B for the taxation periods from July 2017 to April 2021, for the taxpayer who has submitted these returns for tax periods till August 31, 2021.
According to the statement of the ministry “the last date for availing the benefit of the Late Fee Amnesty Scheme has now been extended from the existing August 31, 2021, to November 30, 2021”.
The ministry has received several representations, and after going through them, the government has extended the deadline for furnishing applications for revocation of cancellation of registration to September 30, 2021, where the last date for filing applications for revocation of cancellation of registration comes in between March 1, 2020, to August 31, 2021.
To file Form GSTR-3B and Form GSTR-1/IFF by companies, electronic verification code (EVC) has been already activated, instead of Digital Signature Certificate (DSC), for the period from April 27, 2021, to August 31, 2021. Now, this setup has been carried forward to October 31, 2021.
The ministry said in the statement that “Extension of the last date of the Late Fee amnesty scheme and extension of the deadline for filing applications for revocation of cancellation of registration will benefit a large number of taxpayers, especially small taxpayers, who could not. File your GST return on time due to various reasons, mainly due to difficulties COVID-19 pandemic, and whose registrations were canceled due to the same”.
