GST Late fees Waiver & Key Highlights of 40th GST Council Meeting on 12 June 2020

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today chaired the 40th GST Council meeting via video conferencing. This was the first meeting of the GST Council during the lockdown in which several measures to garner funds for compensation to states are likely to have been discussed.

Members of the GST Council discussed issues over videoconferencing in their first meeting since the coronavirus lockdown was imposed

For the period from July 2017 to January 2020, which is prior to the COVID period, a lot of return filing has been pending. For all those who have no tax liabilities but who have not filed their returns between July 2017-January 2020 there will be zero late fees.

For people who have tax liability, maximum late fee for non-filing of GSTR-3B returns for period July 2017 – January 2020 has been capped to Rs 500. This will apply to all returns submitted during July 1, 2020 – September 30, 2020.

The two decisions regarding late fee for non-filing of GST returns have been taken by GST Council in order to clean up pendencies

Further relief is being offered to small tax payers for late filing of returns for February, March and April 2020

For small tax payers whose aggregate turnover is up to ₹ 5 crore, the rate of interest for late furnishing of GST returns for Feb, Mar and April 2020, beyond July 6, 2020: the rate of interest is being reduced from 18% to 9%

Small tax payers will have to pay no interest for late furnishing of GST returns till July 6, 2020; after that, the interest rate has been reduced to 9%, this will be valid till September 30, 2020

Small tax payers whose aggregate turnover is up to ₹ 5 crore will be provided a waiver of late fees and interest if they file the form GSTR-3B for the supplies affected in months of May, June and July 2020, by September 2020, no late fee or interest

Tax payers who could not get cancelled GST registrations restored in time are being given an opportunity to apply for revocation of cancellation of registration up to September 30, 2020 In all cases where registration has been cancelled till June 12, 2020

A special one-agenda GST Council meeting will be held in July 2020 to discuss compensation cess, which has to be given to states, and who should pay for the borrowing, if required

Correction of inversion of duties has been taken up in today’s meeting as well There has been a unanimity that inversion causes revenue generation problems and unexpected refunds, the question was when this is to be corrected

While the principle regarding correction of inversion of duties has been agreed upon by everybody, the question of the right time to make the correction remained, hence this decision has been postponed, explains Finance Minister