Publish Date: | Sun, 27 Feb 2022 06:15 AM (IST)
GST Annual Return: Indore (Naiduniya Representative). The last date for the GST Annual Return (GSTR-9 and GSTR 9-C) for the financial year 2020-21 is February 28. There are about 4 lakh GST registered businessmen in the state. So far, barely 50 percent of the returns have been filed. Seeing the large number of pending returns, the organizations have raised the demand to increase the last date. The Commercial Tax Practitioners Association and MP Tax Law Bar Association jointly submitted a memorandum in this regard to the Central and State GST Commissioners.
Advocate AK Lakhotia, president of MP Tax La Bar Association, said that in the past, tax consultants along with the business world were busy in doing work like income tax and audit simultaneously and still some work is left. For the year 2020-21, the last date for filing audit reports of taxpayers with annual turnover of more than 2 crores under the Income Tax Act was February 15. The deadline for filing income tax returns has been given till March 15. All the businessmen, accountants and tax consultants are very busy in this work and the situation will remain like this till March 15.
Before filing the annual return of GST, it is necessary for the businessman to reconcile all types of purchases and sales, reconciliation of ITC, income-expenditure and other necessary information etc. contained in his income tax audit and income tax return. Any error, if any, in all the GST returns filed during the year, can be rectified in the annual return itself. This is the last chance for improvement.
In case of discrepancy, it is the compulsion of the trader to pay heavy penalty and interest. In view of such situations, it has also been demanded from the Government and the GST Council that the last date for filing GST Annual Return and Audit should always be kept after 90 days from the last date of submission of Income Tax Return and Audit Report. Because without matching the returns filed in GST with the income tax return and audit report, it is not possible to file the GST return. This year, there has been a demand to increase the date of GST return from 28 February to 30 June. According to AK Gaur, former president of the Commercial Tax Practitioners’ Association, the government should fix the system in which GST annual returns are always sought after income tax audits.
Posted By: Prashant Pandey