Govt extends deadline for claiming transitional credit to June 30

The government has extended the date for filling up a form for claiming transitional credit by three months till June 30.

Also, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has notified the deadline for businesses to fill up final sales return form GSTR-1 from April to June.

The CBEC has notified the extension of date till June 30 for submitting Form GST Tran-2. It is a transitional form in which businesses have to disclose the deemed credits claimed by them on stock as on the date of implementation of GST.

"This extension is expected to bring substantial relief to traders who were struggling with system issues for filing the said form," EY Partner Abhishek Jain said.

PwC's Partner and Leader Indirect Tax Pratik Jain said, this extension is a major relief for the industry, "specifically for those who have to claim deemed credit of opening stock as on July 1, 2017, which have been sold till December 31, 2017."

Besides, giving effect to the decision by the GST Council earlier this month, the CBEC has notified the dates for filing GSTR-1. The Council had decided to continue with the present system of return filing till June.

Accordingly the GSTR-1 for April will have to be filed by May 31, while that for the month of May by June 10. For the month of June, it has to be filed by July 10.

"The due dates for filing of GSTR-1 for the months of April, May and June have been significantly curtailed from earlier 40 days to 31 days for April and 10 days for May and June. The businesses now would need to be quite proactive in collation of data and filing of returns within the curtailed timelines," Jain said.

He said the dates for filing of GSTR-1 indicates that the monthly return cycle shall soon be back in track.

"It may be noted that for these two months, GSTR-3B (summary return) needs to be filed by 20th of the succeeding month, i.e. post filing of Form GSTR-1, which was happening other way round till date. The industry now needs to gear up with monthly compliances and undertaking the reconciliation exercise beforehand," Jain said.