Blanket exemption from fees for late GST payments unfair, says CBIC

The CBIC said a blanket exemption of late fee would be unfair towards taxpayers who filed their February, March and April GST sales returns within the extended due date

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has said that a blanket exemption of late fee would be unfair towards the taxpayers who filed February, March and April GST sales returns within the extended due date of June 24.

A conditional waiver of late fee had been provided for taxpayers as relief to businesses amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

"A blanket exemption of late fee would have been unfair to those taxpayers who filed returns before 24th June," said a CBIC tweet.

Post the relief, for taxpayers having turnover more than Rs 5 crore, late fee waiver on GSTR-3B returns for the tax period February, March and April, 2020 was subject to the condition that the return is filed by June 24, 2020.

The legal "due date" remained the same, 20th day of the succeeding month, such as, for Febuary 2020, it was March 20, 2020. It had been explicitly clarified to the trade that the waiver of late fee is conditional to filing the return of the said tax period by the due date.

"As such if such a taxpayer has filed his return for Feb 2020 on 25th June, he would need to pay late fee from 21st March onwards. This was prescribed to encourage people to file returns by 24th June 2020 and balance their interest with those who do not file by the said date," said another tweet.

--IANS

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