The deadline for filing GST returns for the month of July that ended at midnight Tuesday saw only 40 lakh of the 65 lakh, or 62 per cent eligible taxpayers comply. As of 10 am on October 10, 25 lakh eligible taxpayers were yet to file the comprehensive outward supply return GSTR-1 for the month of July.
Going by the numbers of taxpayers, 82 per cent of the qualified taxpayers had filed even the summarised return GSTR-3B for July so far. The number was even lower at 75 per cent for August.
According to reports, nearly 13 lakh assessees had filed the interim summarised August return (GSTR-3B) on the last day (September 20). Going by this trend, at least 15 lakh businesses won’t have filed GSTR-1 by the deadline.
The powerful GST Council, headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, had already extended the dates for filing the comprehensive triplicate returns (GSTR-1, GSTR-2 and GSTR-3) by two month to October after the GST Network malfunctioned in September due to technical glitches. GST Network, the IT backbone for the new indirect tax regime which was rolled out on July 1, had sent reminder SMSes and emails twice to the businesses which have not filed their GSTR-1.
Once a taxpayer files GSTR-1, the corresponding entries in GSTR-2A of his buyer shall get auto populated. The buyer shall finalise his GSTR-2 after making modifications, if required, in GSTR-2A and avail the Input Tax Credit (ITC).
Taxpayer who had not filed GSTR-1 by October 10, his buyer may face difficulty in availing Input Tax Credit of the tax paid on his supplies.
Meanwhile, reports say that businesses will get another chance to file this return only in November if they had not done so by October 10 midnight. This is because the window for filing GSTR-2 (details of inward supplies) will open from October 11, and the system will not allow any further filing of GSTR-1 till the end of the month, leading to blockage of ITC for many assessees.
However, this is unlikely to cause any revenue loss to the government as 95 per cent of it is collected from less than 5% of assessees.
While GSTN has estimated that nearly 80 crore invoices would be uploaded every month for filing GSTR-1, less than half (35.5 crore) had been uploaded till last Friday.
