Finance Ministry staggers filing of GSTR-3B to ease system load

Published by Sunil Dutt at Last Updated on September 14th, 2020 at 1:20 pm Published on January 23, 2020

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Source: pib.gov.in

After constant complaining from taxpayers of technical glitches in filing the monthly summary GST returns (GSTR-3B), the Finance Ministry on Wednesday said that it would allow the filing of GSTR-3B returns in a staggered manner. In order to ease the system load, witnessed especially closer to the filing due date on 20th of every month, the deadline of filing of returns will now be on the basis of turnover and location.

Currently, for all taxpayers, the due date for filing GSTR-3B is 20th of every month which was causing difficulties for trade, industry and other stakeholders. The government has now provided three dates – 20th, 22nd and 24th – of every month for different categories of taxpayers. It was reported that about one-fifth amounting to 13.30 lakh GSTR-3B returns were filed on the last day (January 20).

Deadline for filing GSTR-3B – 20th, 22nd and 24th of every month

The ministry released a statement saying, “From now on, the last date for filing of GSTR-3B for the taxpayers having annual turnover of ₹5 Crore and above in the previous financial year would be 20th of the month. Thus, around 8 lakh regular taxpayers would have the last date of GSTR-3B filing as 20th of every month without late fees.”

The taxpayers having an annual turnover of below ₹5 Crore in the previous fiscal will be divided further into two categories. These two groups of 49 and 46 lakh taxpayers belonging to two sets of states and union territories will now have the deadline as 22nd and 24th of every month respectively.

The first category of around 49 lakh tax filers from 15 states/UTs – Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Lakshadweep, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh – will now have the last date of filing GSTR-3B returns as 22nd of every month without late fees.

For the other category of 46 lakh taxpayers from 22 states/UTs of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha will now have the last date of filing the GSTR-3B as 24th of every month.

Sunil Dutt

Sunil Dutt Sharma is an MBA in finance with over 20 years of experience in taxation, accounts, and finance consulting. He leads the functional consulting team at HostBooks. As a Functional Consultant Head, he helps the software development team incorporate accounting principles, taxation, and other laws in the compliance software. Previously he worked as a Taxation Manager at Taxmann Technologies Pvt. Ltd. for over 10 years and has also served as Accounts and Finance Manager for over 9 years. He excels in all the facets of accounts, finance, and taxation consulting, especially direct tax laws.