Days
before the final deadline of December 31, 2018 to file GST Annual
Return, the government has announced an extension by three months till
March 31, 2019.
According to a statement by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (
CBIC), it has been decided to extend the due date for filing form GSTR-9, form GSTR-9A and
form GSTR-9C
till
March 31, 2019. “The requisite FORMs shall be made available on
the GST common portal shortly. Relevant order is being issued,” said the
statement.
FORM GSTR-9 and FORM GSTR-9A have been notified dated 04.09.2018 while
FORM GSTR-9C has been notified dated 13.09.2018 as part of the CGST
Rules.
“The first time annual compliances are new and many nuances are not too
well understood even by many large taxpayers. The extended timeline
would provide a big relief to the taxpayers to understand the issues and
the Government to run and effective awareness campaign and resolve the
open points,” says Pryajit Ghosh, Partner, KPMG India.
There has been a clamour to extend the deadline with The Confederation
of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday urging the finance minister
Arun Jaitley to extend the last date for filing annual goods and services tax return.
CAIT said that the format of filing of annual
GST return is not available anywhere including the GST website.
"Under such circumstances it will not be possible for the traders to
file their annual GST return by the stipulated period and as an
immediate measure, the CAIT has urged to extend the last date of filing
annual GST return up to March 31 2019 for the period 2017-18."
As per the GST Rules, various forms have been prescribed for the
purpose of return, depending upon the categories of the tax payers,
which are as follows:
The Government has now increased the timelines for taxpayers under 9A,
9C and 9. According to the law failure to file annual return shall
attract a late fee of Rs 200 per day during the period of failure,
subject to a maximum of 0.25% of the said Financial Year's turnover.