40th GST Council meet, first since lockdown: No late fee for GST returns filing for entities with nil tax liability

New Delhi: The 40th GST council meeting, the first since lockdown, was held on Friday under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

In line with expectations the government has considered revising late filing fee for returns from July 2017 to January 2020. 

For the period from July 2017 to Jan 2020, which is prior to COVID19 period, a lot of return filing has been pending. FM said that there will be no late fee will for delayed filing of GST returns by registered entities with nil tax liability between July 2017 to January 2020.

Briefing reporters after GST Council meeting, FM Sitaraman said that late fee for non-filing of monthly sales return for others has been reduced to a maximum of Rs 500 for July 2017 to January 2020 period.

Among the major discussions that the Council held was inverted duty structure hitting GST collections. FM said council also discussed inverted duty structure in textile.

In the next meeting, decision will be taken on tobacco related items as demanded by UP minister.

The GST Council has decided to reduce interest rate on late GST filing by half to 9 percent for small companies. Additionally, there will be no late fee for May to July returns for small companies.

GSTC will also consider borrowing to fund compensation. Tax payers who could not get cancelled GST registrations restored in time are being given an opportunity to apply for revocation of cancellation of registration up to September 30, 2020, in all cases where registration has been cancelled till June 12, 2020.

The GST Council meeting in July will discuss compensation cess.

Others attending the meeting were MoS Finance Anurag Thakur, Finance Ministers of States and Union Territories and Senior officers from Union Government and States.

The 39th meeting of GST Council was held in March, which proposed rationalisation of taxes on many items. The nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24 for 21 days in the first leg in a bid to contain the spread of novel coronavirus. It was then extended till May 3 and then again till May 17. The fourth phase of lockdown is in place till May 31.