Deadline for supply returns extended to Jan 10

The government on Friday extended the last date for filing of final detailed sales return for the first four months by 10 days under the goods and services tax (GST). The extension of the deadline to January 10 comes as a relief to taxpayers struggling with technical issues related to the GST Network portal. 

According to a government notification, businesses with turnover of more than Rs 1.5 crore has to file GSTR-1 for July-October by January 10. For small taxpayers with annual turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore, too, the date for filing these returns for the first three months has been extended to January 10.

"Extension comes as a relief for the industry as functionality for filing GSTR-1 for August to October came in second half of the current month only,” said Pratik Jain of PwC India. There were also system-related issues in a few cases with respect to data upload, saving and generation of one-time password. “It also means that tax and finance professionals will not have to spend their New Year eve in office.” 

Atul Gupta, senior director, Deloitte India, said the GSTN portal had become exceedingly slow and a large number of taxpayers were struggling to upload returns over the past two days. “Evidently, the government has to work and make the GSTN portal glitch-free and robust to handle the load. Undoubtedly, the time is running out for the government to fix the GST,” he said.

Gupta added that a significant reason for lack of buoyancy in GST revenues was that tax non-compliance was on the rise in the absence of any significant self-regulating deterrence mechanism, GSTR 2 returns for purchases were still not required to be filed.