The government has issued a slew of procedural amendments to the GST laws, including the imposition of interest for illegal ITC utilisation and the turnover criteria for filing annual returns for the fiscal year 2021-22.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council approved the amendments at its meeting last week.
Businesses can now make tax payments on the GSTN site utilising IMPS and UPI payment mechanisms, thanks to changes announced by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
According to the new rules, businesses having an aggregate annual sales of up to Rs 2 crore in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022 are excused from filing annual returns for 2021-22.
The amendment further specified that interest on incorrectly claimed input tax credit (ITC) would only apply if the credit was used. The Finance Act included a mechanism for charging interest on ITC that was improperly obtained and used.
The provision would take effect on July 5 and would be retroactive to July 1, 2017, the date of GST implementation.
The notification issued for a retrospective adjustment to Section 50(3), clarifying that interest on improper credit availment would only apply where such credit is used, is a positive one.
The GST statute has been appropriately revised to state that interest would be paid only on the ITC that has been claimed and used. “This change is really welcomed and brings this issue to an end.”
The revisions also include automatic cancellation of cancelled GST registrations once the return filing is regularised.
“This will save taxpayers time and effort in having registrations cancelled even after regularisation of return submissions.” It will eliminate interaction and increase impersonal GST compliance.
The regulation modifications would also assist small businesses in complying with the law, as well as taxpayers with less than Rs 2 crore in annual sales who must file GST returns.
Other significant modifications include the extending of the time limit established in Section 73 (tax determination) of the GST Act for the issuance of an order for fiscal year 2017-18 to September 30, 2023.
No extensions have been granted for any other fiscal year.
“A reasonable extension has been granted in connection to the delayed filing of refund applications throughout the COVID period (March 1, 2020 to February 28, 2022), which would enable numerous exporters to encash the refunds stuck in litigation,”.
Given the COVID scenario for India over the last two years, the government has extended the restriction period under GST for issuing notices to taxpayers who have not paid/ underpaid the tax due. Similarly, there is a flexibility in the time restriction for filing refunds.
“While the government’s objective is to reduce tax leakage, this change exposes enterprises to departmental audits and assessments for an extra period of time. Having said that, this adjustment also assures that legitimate taxpayers are not denied refund requests “.
The method of calculating interest on late tax payments has been announced, which will assist taxpayers in making accurate calculations of their tax liabilities.
According to the updated guidelines, every invoice issued by an MSME supplier would include a standard declaration regarding the non-applicability of e-invoice.
Furthermore, cash ledger balances under the same PAN can be moved from one GST registered firm to another.