State Finance Minister Devendra Fadnavis has extended the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government’s amnesty scheme for the payment of tax, interest, penalty, and late fee arrears that existed before the Goods and Services Tax was put into effect.
In his first budget speech, Fadnavis referred to the legislation as the Maharashtra Settlement of Arrears of Tax, Interest, Penalty or Late Fee Act, 2023, and said that under its provisions, the government will fully forgive any arrears that total less than Rs 2 lakh as required by law for any given year. Over one lakh small traders, he claimed, would gain from this.
Moreover, dealers with arrears of Rs 50 lakh or less as per the statutory order would pay only 20% of the entire arrears, with the rest 80% remitted. According to him, this would assist around 80,000 instances.
Read also: GST Meeting Suggests New Amnesty Schemes for Pending Returns
The MVA included the project in its budget for 2021-22. It offered full forgiveness for arrears under Rs 10,000 and benefitted around 89,890 instances. A total of Rs 81 crore in outstanding debt was forgiven. Furthermore, dealers dropped 20,000 non-appealable claims in order to take advantage of the 2022 Amnesty Scheme for GST returns. A total of Rs 2,234 crore has been collected through this scheme, with arrears of Rs 6,947 crore forgiven.
From May 1 to October 31, 2023, the new scheme will be in effect. It will apply to outstanding arrears as of May 1, 2023.
