In a significant move towards taxpayer facilitation, the Government has today onwards allowed filing of NIL GST monthly return in FORM GSTR-3B through SMS.
This would substantially improve ease of GST compliance for over 22 lakh registered taxpayers who had to otherwise log into their account on the common portal and then file their returns every month.
Now, these taxpayers with NIL liability need not log on to the GST Portal and may file their NIL returns through an SMS.
For this purpose, the functionality of filing Nil FORM GSTR-3B through SMS has been made available on the GSTN portal with immediate effect.
The status of the returns so filed can be tracked on the GST Portal by logging in to GSTIN account and navigating to Services>Returns>Track Return Status.
In the context of the COVID-19 situation and with a view to providing immediate relief to the business entities and individuals, it has been decided to issue all the pending income-tax refunds up to Rs. 5 lakh, immediately.
This would benefit around 14 lakh taxpayers.
It has also been decided to issue all pending GST and Custom refunds which would provide benefit to around 1 lakh business entities, including MSME.
Thus, the total refund granted will be approximately Rs. 18,000 crore.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures for extension of statutory and regulatory compliances in view of the corona virus pandemic spreading its wings and impacting the economy.
Allaying fears that there is no economic emergency in the country, FM said that the Economic Task Force will soon announce an economic relief package to deal with the impact of the corona virus pandemic on the economy.
These are largely in the area of ease of doing business, by providing reliefs in extension of due dates for compliances and reliefs from late fee and penalties, in view of the lock downs announced in several states and districts.
Income Tax
The last date for filing income tax returns for Financial Year 2018-19, extended from 31st March, 2020 to 30th June, 2020.
Aadhaar-PAN linking date extended from 31st March, 2020 to 30th June, 2020.
Vivad se Vishwas scheme – no additional 10% amount, if payment made by June 30, 2020.
Due dates for issue of notice, intimation, notification, approval order, sanction order, filing of appeal, furnishing of return, statements, applications, reports, any other documents and time limit for completion of proceedings by the authority and any compliance by the taxpayer including investment in saving instruments or investments for roll over benefit of capital gains under Income Tax Act, Wealth Tax Act, Prohibition of Benami Property Transaction Act, Black Money Act, STT law, CTT Law, Equalization Levy law, Vivad Se Vishwas law where the time limit is expiring between 20th March 2020 to 29th June 2020 extended to 30th June 2020.
For delayed payments of advanced tax, self-assessment tax, regular tax, TDS, TCS, equalization levy, STT, CTT made between 20th March 2020 and 30th June 2020, reduced interest rate at 9% instead of 12 %/18 % per annum ( i.e. 0.75% per month instead of 1/1.5 percent per month) will be charged for this period. No late fee/penalty shall be charged for delay relating to this period.
Necessary legal circulars and legislative amendments for giving effect to the aforesaid relief shall be issued in due course.
GST/Indirect Tax
Last date for filing GSTR-3B in March, April and May 2020 extended till the last week of 30th June, 2020 for those having aggregate annual turnover less than Rs. 5 Crore. No interest, late fee, and penalty to be charged.
For any delayed payment made between 20th March 2020 and 30th June 2020 reduced rate of interest @9 % per annum ( current interest rate is 18 % per annum) will be charged. No late fee and penalty to be charged, if complied before till 30th June 2020.
Date for opting for composition scheme is extended till the last week of June, 2020. Further, the last date for making payments for the quarter ending 31st March, 2020 and filing of return for 2019-20 by the composition dealers will be extended till the last week of June, 2020.
Date for filing GST annual returns of FY 18-19, which is due on 31st March, 2020 is extended till the last week of June 2020.
Due date for issue of notice, notification, approval order, sanction order, filing of appeal, furnishing of return, statements, applications, reports, any other documents, time limit for any compliance under the GST laws where the time limit is expiring between 20th March 2020 to 29th June 2020 extended to 30th June 2020.
Necessary legal circulars and legislative amendments to give effect to the aforesaid GST relief shall follow with the approval of GST Council.
Payment date under Sabka Vishwas Scheme extended to 30th June, 2020. No interest for this period shall be charged if paid by 30th June, 2020.
Customs
Custom clearance will operate 24X7 till June 30, 2020.
Due date for issue of notice, notification, approval order, sanction order, filing of appeal, furnishing applications, reports, any other documents etc., time limit for any compliance under the Customs Act and other allied Laws where the time limit is expiring between 20th March 2020 to 29th June 2020 shall be extended to 30th June 2020.
Financial Services
Relaxations for 3 months
Debit cardholders to withdraw cash for free from any other banks’ ATM for 3 months
Waiver of minimum balance fee
Reduced bank charges for digital trade transactions for all trade finance consumers
Corporate Affairs
No additional fees shall be charged for late filing during a moratorium period from 01st April to 30th September 2020, in respect of any document, return, statement etc., required to be filed in the MCA-21 Registry, irrespective of its due date, which will not only reduce the compliance burden, including financial burden of companies/ LLPs at large, but also enable long-standing non-compliant companies/ LLPs to make a ‘fresh start’;
The mandatory requirement of holding meetings of the Board of the companies within prescribed interval provided in the Companies Act (120 days), 2013, shall be extended by a period of 60 days till next two quarters i.e., till 30th September;
Applicability of Companies (Auditor’s Report) Order, 2020 shall be made applicable from the financial year 2020-2021 instead of from 2019-2020 notified earlier. This will significantly ease the burden on companies & their auditors for the year 2019-20.
As per Schedule 4 to the Companies Act, 2013, Independent Directors are required to hold at least one meeting without the attendance of Non-independent directors and members of management. For the year 2019-20, if the IDs of a company have not been able to hold even one meeting, the same shall not be viewed as a violation.
Requirement to create a Deposit reserve of 20% of deposits maturing during the financial year 2020-21 before 30th April 2020 shall be allowed to be complied with till 30th June 2020.
Requirement to invest 15% of debentures maturing during a particular year in specified instruments before 30th April 2020, may be done so before 30th June 2020.
Newly incorporated companies are required to submit commencement of Business certificate within 6 months of incorporation. This is now extended to 12 months.
Non-compliance of minimum residency in India for a period of at least 182 days by at least one director of every company, under Section 149 of the Companies Act, shall not be treated as a violation.
Due to the emerging financial distress faced by most companies on account of the large-scale economic distress caused by COVID 19, it has been decided to raise the threshold of default under section 4 of the IBC 2016 to Rs 1 crore (from the existing threshold of Rs 1 lakh). This will by and large prevent triggering of insolvency proceedings against MSMEs. If the current situation continues beyond 30th of April 2020, we may consider suspending section 7, 9 and 10 of the IBC 2016 for a period of 6 months so as to stop companies at large from being forced into insolvency proceedings in such force majeure causes of default.
Detailed notifications/circulars in this regard shall be issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs separately.
Department of Commerce
Extension of timelines for various compliance and procedures will be given. Detailed notifications will be issued by Ministry of Commerce.
Infosys Nilekani gave GST Network presentation to Council.
Council ask Infosys to improve GST Network by July.
Filing to be mandatory for taxpayers over Rs 5cr of annual
turnover
Decides to extend deadline for filing of GSTR9 & GSTR9C
for FY18-19 till June 30, 2020,
GST Council to continue with 3B till September & defer the new return system.
Council defers the proposal on taxability of economic surplus of brand owners of alcohol for human consumption,
Reassures states towards payment of compensation dues,
Where Cancellation have been cancelled till March 14,
application for cancellation of revocation can be filed till March 31, 2020.
GSTR-1 to be made compulsory only for making B2B supplies,
exports & amendments
B2C & non-filers of GSTR-3B to be exempted from filing
GSTR-1
Before 10th for turnover greater than Rs 1.5 cr
Before 13th for turnover lesser than Rs 1.5 cr
GSTR-2A to be generated on 14th of every month
Council approves “Know your Supplier” Scheme
Major Reliefs:
Interest for delay in GST payment will now be charged on next cash liability under Section 50, to be applicable from July 2017
GST on mobile phones and specified parts was increased from 12% to 18%. This decision was taken to avoid difficulties due to the inverted duty structure.
All types of matches have been rationalised to a single GST rate of 12%. Till now, the handmade ones were taxed at 5% and the rest was taxed at 18%.
GST on Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) service in respect to aircraft was reduced from 18% to 5% with full ITC.
All these rate changes will come into effect from 01 April 2020.
A new scheme called ‘Know your Supplier’ has been introduced so that the taxpayers are informed about the basic details of the suppliers with whom they transact or propose to conduct business.
Supplier can upload the Tax Invoices on real time basis in Anx-1.
Recipient can view his purchase Invoices on near real time basis.
Recipient can also view whether supplier has filed his return or not.
Supplier has to upload the Tax Invoices latest by 10th of Next Month.
However, recipient can claim ITC on missing invoices also subject to certain conditions.
In case, Invoice uploaded by the supplier in Anx-1, but RET-1 is not filed, uploading of invoices in Anx-1 will be treated as self-admitted liability and recovery proceedings will be initiated against the supplier, except in certain specified situations where recipient will be liable to pay.
Recipient has to pay the amount of ITC availed on missing invoices after specified period. (Missing invoices means, invoices not uploaded in Anx-1)
To find out missing invoices, Offline IT Tool will be provided for matching invoices in Anx-2 with invoices in the accounting system of recipient.
Payment of tax shall be discharged full at the time of filing of RET-1 or SAHAJ or SUGAM itself.
In case of Quarterly returns, tax shall be paid on monthly basis.
Recipient can do the following actions on the invoices appearing in Anx-2 (auto drafted Purchase Invoice):
Accept also called as locking
Reject (eg. Invoice not related to the recipient)
Pending
If no action is taken on a particular invoice, it will be deemed by the system as accepted and ITC will be available against these invoices.
Once invoice is accepted by the recipient, i.e., locked by the recipient, supplier cannot amend those invoices.
Locked Invoice should be unlocked by the recipient only, for making any amendment by the supplier.
Supplier will be able to issue Debit Note or Credit Note on locked invoices also. If credit/debit note is issued against any pending invoice, then system will club the credit/debit note with pending invoice.
Second set of 15 features (16-30 points) as PART-II:-
Missing invoices shall be reported in RET-1 of the current month.
System will calculate the interest automatically. Once the tax and interest is paid, the missing invoice will be clubbed with the monthly return to which it relates.
For amendments, separate Return Form is available.
Maximum 2 amendments return can be filed for any one month.
“NIL” Return can be filed by “SMS”.
Negative liability if any shall be carried forward to next month regular return.
Higher late fee for amendment return if change in liability is more than 10%
Shipping Bill details also should be entered in Anx-1 by the exporters.
If the shipping bill details are not available by the time of filing the return, the same can be entered later on also.
The export data then will be transmitted to ICEGATE portal for cross verification purposes.
Until the facility is ready to pull the data from ICEGATE portal, importers can avail ITC on imports and supplies from SEZ on self-declaration basis.
New concept of suspension of registration will be introduced. From the date of suspension till the date of cancellation, tax payer need not file returns and invoice uploading also will not be allowed.
HSN should be reported at 4 digit level in monthly return.
The tables in the return will be opened based on the profile of the tax payer.
For all return obligations offline utility tools are made available to make filing process as easy as possible.
As part of Government of India’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) initiatives, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs would be shortly notifying & deploying a new Web Form christened ‘SPICe+’ (pronounced ‘SPICe Plus’) replacing the existing SPICe form.
SPICe+ would save as many procedures, time and cost for Starting a Business in India and would be applicable for all new company incorporation w.e.f 15th February 2020
Key Features of Spice+
SPICe+ would be an integrated Web Form i.e. fill form online like GST registration forms. The new web form would Facilitate on-screen filing and real time data validation for seamless incorporation of companies.
Information once entered can be saved and modified. All Check form and Pre-scrutiny validations will happen on web form itself.
DSC validation and other validations will happen at Upload Level
Once the SPICe+ is filled completely with all relevant details, the same would then have to be converted into pdf format, with just a click of the mouse button, for affixing DSCs.
Digitally signed applications can then be uploaded along with the linked forms as per the existing process.
Changes/modifications to SPICe+ (even after generating pdf and affixing DSCs), can also be done by editing the same web form
Spice+ would have 2 parts:
a) Part A : for name reservation for new incorporation
b) Part B : Part B offering a bouquet of services i.e.
Incorporation
DIN allotment
Mandatory issue of PAN / TAN
Mandatory issue of EPFO / ESIC registration
Mandatory issue of Profession Tax registration (Maharashtra)
Mandatory Opening of Bank Account for the Company
Allotment of GSTIN (if so applied for)
Part A can be filed first for reserving name or Part A & B can be filed together at one go.
Re submission would be easy, if required.
Registration for EPFO and ESIC shall be mandatory for all new companies incorporated w.e.f 15 February 2020 and no EPFO & ESIC registration nos. shall be separately issued by the respective agencies.
Registration for Profession Tax shall also be mandatory for all new companies incorporated in the State of Maharashtra w.e.f 15th February 2020.
All new companies incorporated through SPICe+ (w.e.f 15th February 2020) would also be mandatorily required to apply for opening the company’s Bank account through the AGILE-PRO linked web form.
Declaration by all Subscribers and first Directors in INC-9 shall be auto-generated in pdf format and would have to be submitted only in Electronic form in all cases, except where:
Total number of subscribers and/or directors is greater than 20 and/or
Any such subscribers and/or directors has neither DIN nor PAN
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) late on Friday night extended the due date for furnishing GST Annual Return and Reconciliation Statement (GSTR-9 / 9A and GSTR-9C) for FY 2017-18 in a staggered manner. The last date to file the Returns was January 31, 2020.
This came after thousands of taxpayers took to social media complaining about the GST portal not working. “Considering the difficulties being faced by taxpayers in filing GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C for FY 2017-18 it has been decided to extend the due dates in a staggered manner for different groups of States to 3rd, 5th and 7th February 2020 as under,” CBIC said in a Tweet.
Accordingly under Group 1, the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Other Territory has been placed and they will need to file their returns by 3rd February 2020.
Group 2 includes Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Gujarat that have to file by 5th February 2020.
Lastly group 3 includes the states of Bihar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, West Bengal, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, which now have to file by 7th February 2020.
On a day when the Economic Survey acknowledged the fact that both GST system is complex, taxpayers found it impossible to file their returns. By evening of January 31, #gstnfailed was the top trend on Twitter. At 10 30 pm CBIC tweeted the extension dates, but early reports suggest the portal is still not working.