80,000 returns uploaded per hour on GSTN site on last day: Chairman

Over 80,000 GSTR-3B compliances for August were uploaded every hour on the GST Network (GSTN) portal on the last day of filing initial returns for the last month, GSTN Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey said on Wednesday.

"Currently, the GSTN system is working smoothly and accepting more than 80,000 GSTR-3B returns per hour," Pandey told reporters here.

Till September 16, 3.5 lakh taxpayers had filed GSTR-3B returns for August, he said.

September 20 was the last date for filing the GSTR-3B forms, a summary return of details of outward supplies, inward supplies, credit and payment of Goods and Services Tax.

Last month, the government announced a five-day extension for filing the GSTR-3B form till August 25, after the GSTN return filing portal was hit by a technical glitch and stopped functioning, a day ahead of the last date for filing.

Thus, traders across the country faced problems and could not file their returns.

Technical issues again earlier this month forced the government to extend the deadline for filing the GST sales return -- GSTR-1 -- for another five days till September 10.

The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, had decided to set up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to sort out the issues hampering the smooth operation of the GSTN portal.

Referring to the technical glitches that have plagued the digital filing of GST returns by businesses, Jaitley on Wednesday blamed it on the last-minute rush to meet the deadline.

"A lot of the GST problem is self-invited by assessees. For example, today (Wednesday) is the last date for filing returns (August), but till last night only 25 per cent had paid their taxes," Jaitley told reporters here.

"So, if 75 per cent of people wait till the last day, the system is bound to crash... its capacity is 1 lakh per hour or 24 lakh throughout the day. Till last night, there was no problem," he added.

Last month, he announced that the government had comfortably met the collection targets for the first month of GST implementation in July.

The Minister said that Rs 92,283 crore in tax had come in by August 29 with 38.38 lakh assessees, or only 64 per cent of those registered, having filed their GST returns. The total number of those registered under the GST who should be filing returns is 59.57 lakh.

--IANS

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