The State government has decided to waive the late fee being charged from persons registered under the Goods and Services Tax who failed to furnish their returns through Form GSTR – 3B for July.
In line with the provisions under the GST Act, the Commercial Taxes department has started levying penalty of ₹ 200 a day for taxpayers who failed to file their first GST returns within the August 25 deadline.
Of the total penalty, ₹ 100 each would go into the account of Central GST and the State GST.
Penal interest
But the Commercial Taxes Department has decided to waive the penalty following recommendations made by the GST Council and orders had been issued accordingly.
The 18 % interest on the late payment would however be applicable to all taxpayers who had not completely discharged their GST liability for July by August 25.
Convenience
According to senior officials, the decision to exempt persons failing to furnish their returns had been taken for the time being as the department did not want to inconvenience the taxpayers.
Collection of penalties and such gestures had scope for negative impact and could wean away genuine taxpayers from the system and the department was not in favour of this, officials explained.
Initial problems
“Since GST has been introduced for the first time, several issues are cropping up. There are gaps in the system like registered dealers not submitting their details due to technical or other reasons, which cannot be construed as wilful,” a senior official told The Hindu .
“We are focussing on the sections that contribute maximum revenue to the exchequer without inconveniencing the trader who is willing to pay his tax,” he added.
Official assistance
The department’s focus was on over 32,000 dealers of the total 2.2 lakh registered under the GST regime who contribute over 90 % of the tax.
It was therefore decided to assign specific number of taxpayers to each officer so that they could render assistance to the taxpayer to effectively discharge their GST liabilities.
