Highlight of GST Council Meet on 5th October 2020

   The 42^nd Council Meet happened on 5th October 2020 under the Chairmanship of Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs Shri Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and senior officers of the Ministry of Finance& States/ UTs. The GST Council Meet gave following recommendation –

• Composition Cess Levy to be extended beyond 5 transition years for further more year to as may be required to meet the revenue gap.
• Centre Released Rs 20,000 crore on 5^th October 2020 to states for the loss of revenue during the year 2020-21 and Rs 25,000 Crore towards IGST of 2017-18 by the coming week.
• Due date of Quarterly return has changed to 13^th of the succeeding month of the quarter w.e.f. 1^st January 2021.
• GST liability will be auto populated in GSTR 3B from GSTR 1 filed w.e.f. 1^st January 2021.
• Input Tax Credit (ITC) will be auto populated in GSTR 3B from GSTR 2B for monthly filers w.e.f. 1^st January 2021 and for quarterly filers w.e.f. 1^st April 2021.
• For auto population of liability in GSTR 3B, it will be mandatory to file GSTR 1 before GSTR 3B

w.e.f. 1^st April 2021.

• The present system of filing GSTR 1 & GSTR 3B is extended till 31^st March 2021.
• Small tax payers having aggregate turnover < 5 Crore will be allowed to file return on quarterly basis with monthly. Such taxpayers will have an option to pay 35% of the total net cash liability of last quarter with auto generated challan in the first 2 months of the quarter.
• For tax payers having aggregate turnover > 5 Crore has to quote 6 digits of HSN/SAC on invoice for both supply of Goods and Services.
• For tax payers having aggregate turnover < 5 Crore has to quote 4 digits of HSN/SAC on invoice of B2B supply for both supply of Goods and Services.
• Refund will be paid only if the Bank Account is validated PAN & Aadhar w.e.f. 1^st January 2021.
• For encouraging domestic launching of Satellite by young Start-ups, service related to satellite given to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Antrix Corporation Ltd. and NSIL would be exempted.

“From Jan 1, 2021, Taxpayer with annual turnover less than Rs. 5 Crore need not file monthly returns (GSTR-3B and GSTR-1); quarterly returns will do. From Jan 1, 2021, filing of quarterly GST returns will do However, since states require money every month, payments can be made through challan every month, even though returns can be filed every quarter” – was said by the Finance Secretary in the Press conference.

The above recommendation has brought relief to many taxpayers as various compliance and payments have been deferred for Small Tax Payers having aggregate turnover < 5 Crore w.e.f. 1^st January 2021. This decision of the council will reduce 24 returns by the small taxpayers to 8 return per year.

-Akash Girish Doshi

Reference –

 

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