The lock-down of offices, shops and other businesses due to the outbreak of coronavirus will affect the GST collections for March and April. According to experts, the hit can not be embraced even by agreeing to the demands of taxpayers to extend the due date of filing GST returnsView the due dates of GST return filing forms of GSTR 1, GSTR 3B, GSTR 4, GSTR 5, GSTR 6, GSTR 9, GSTR 9C, etc. The dates are according to the Indian Govt announcement. Read More from March 20 to some other date.
The primary sectors of the economy like travel, food, and tourism will be affected the most because of the outbreak. Other businesses too will be operating at the lowest of levels.
A report by State Bank of India (SBI) on tourism, travel, and hotels states “On an aggregate basis, we estimate that the impact of a 5 percent inoperability shock could be 90 basis point on GDP from Trade, Hotel, and Transport to Storage and Communication segment. It could be spread over 2019-20 and 2020-21, with a larger impact in the latter year.” The demand for these three sectors have hit the worst.
The report also said that nearly 2.5 crore people travel through airways and nearly 30 crore people use trains on an average in any month. If even a 10% reduction happens in these numbers, then it will result in a revenue loss of INR 3500 Crores per month due to the outbreak.
A revenue of nearly INR 33 lakh crore is generated from trade, transport, broadcasting, communication, and hotels. This number will go down, affecting the GST collections of the governments.
GST on trains and economy class flights is 5% and that on business class flights is 12%. The GST on hotels 
All these impacts will further degrade the fiscal situation of the government. The Finance Ministry Officers expect that the impact of the outbreak on the financial situation will be visible in the next financial year. The target of ministry to achieve the target of collecting INR 1.25 lakh crores as GST for March 2020 does not look achievable now. In February 2020, the GST collections were INR 1.06 lakh crores instead of the target INR 1.10 lakh crores.
According to the budget estimates, the GST collections were projected to be INR 6.12 lakh crores but the actual collections till January 2020 were INR 5 lakh crores.
The government offices are directed to work on minimal staff and many are instructed to work from home so many businesses will be facing problems in filing the returns on the due date hence, numerous assessees are demanding an extension in the due date of filing the returns.
“As the taxpayers short of staff as most of them are unable to report to offices, an extension of the due date of payment of GST and filing of return is eagerly being awaited,” says Pritam Mahure, a Pune-based chartered accountant.
Rajat Mohan partner, AMRG & Associates, says “There are no discussions around issues with the data that we have of our clients as they are shutting down offices. We are just pushing across the same to the servers and getting it filed.”
