agencies
New Delhi, August 9: The government has notified the timeline for furnishing final tax returns for July and August under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime.
As per an official notification, outward supplies in Form GSTR-1 for the month of July will have to be filed between September 1-5. For August, it is to be filed between September 16-20. The original date for filing GSTR-1 was 10th of the next month and for GSTR-2 15th of September.
Form GSTR-3 for July will now have to be filed between September 11-15 and for August the date is September 26-30.
Meanwhile, GST Network Chairman Navin Kumar said that millions of companies were still not ready to file their first returns under the new Goods and Services Tax.
Kumar added that barely half of the 34 service providers accredited to help firms bulk-file invoices online had received approval to go live.
Yet he gave an assurance that the huge IT back end that is designed to crunch up to 3 billion invoices a month and calculate companies’ taxes would be stable, even if there is a last-minute rush to file.
The GST Council, chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state counterparts, had in June allowed businesses extended timeline for filing final GST returns in forms GSTR-1, GSTR-2 and GSTR-3 for July and August.
In the interim period, businesses have to file GSTR-3B which is a summary of self-assessed tax liabilities with consolidated details of outward supplies and input credit.
The original date for filing GSTR-3, which is the monthly return on the basis of finalisation of details of outward supplies and inward supplies along with the payment of amount of tax, was 20th of the next month.
As regards GSTR-3B, the GST Network portal has started the facility for filing of July returns from August 5. The last date for filing the GSTR-3B for July 2017 is August 20, while the same for the month of August 2017 is September 20.
Over 71.30 lakh excise, service tax and VAT payers have migrated to the GSTN portal and over 15 lakh new assesses have registered on the platform.
More than 7 million existing taxpayers have activated accounts on the GST’s portal – although around a third have yet to complete the form-filling required to file a full tax return, Kumar said.
Another 1.3 million new firms have registered to pay GST.
