GST Amnesty Scheme: Deadline for late fee amnesty under GST extended till November 30, 2021

Deadline for GST Amnesty Scheme extended

• The Government had brought a welcome GST Amnesty Scheme by its Notification No. 19/2021- Central Tax, dated 01-06-2021. The GST Amnesty Scheme as announced by the Government was a big relief to the thousands of GST registered taxpayers who could not make timely compliances by filing GST returns.
• Under the GST Amnesty Scheme, late fee for non-furnishing Form GSTR-3B for the tax periods from July 2017 to April 2021 were reduced/ waived. But the taxpayers were required to furnish such returns for these tax periods between 01-06-2021 to 31-08-2021.
• However, the last date to avail the benefit of the GST Amnesty Scheme has now been extended from 31-08-2021 to 30-11-2021. For this, The CBIC issued Notification No. 33/2021- Central Tax dated 29.08.2021.

Extension of timelines for filing application for revocation of cancellation of registration

• Further, based on the multiple representations received, the Government has also extended the timelines for filing of application for revocation of cancellation of registration to 30^th September, 2021, where the due date of filing of application for revocation of cancellation of registration falls between 01-03-2020 to 31-08-2021.
• The extension would be applicable only in those cases where registrations have been cancelled under clause (b) or clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 29 of the CGST Act.
• Notification No. 34/2021- Central Tax, dated 29.08.2021 has been issued in this regard.

Filing of FORM GSTR-3B & FORM GSTR-1/IFF by EVC

• The filing of FORM GSTR-3B and FORM GSTR-1/IFF by companies using electronic verification code (EVC) instead of Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) has already been enabled for the period from 27.04.2021 to 31.08.2021.
• This facility has been further extended to 31^st October, 2021.
• Notification No. 32/2021- Central Tax dated 29.08.2021 has been issued in this regard.

The relief granted by CBIC in extending the deadlines for GST Amnesty Scheme and time limit for filing of application for revocation of cancellation of registration is certainly beneficial to a number of taxpayers who could not file their GST returns in time due to various reasons including problems posed by COVID-19 pandemic and whose registrations were cancelled due to this reason.

Refer the above Notifications:

Notification No. 32/2021- Central Tax dated 29.08.2021

Notification No. 33/2021- Central Tax dated 29.08.2021

Notification No. 34/2021- Central Tax dated 29.08.2021