Finance Ministry has also extended timelines related to an application for revocation of cancellation of registration and use of electronic verification code for filing GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B
Ministry of Finance has extended the last date to avail of the late fee amnesty scheme under the Goods and Services Act (GST), which has now been extended to November 30, 2021. The scheme was scheduled to expire on August 31, 2021.
The late fee amnesty scheme refers to the reduction or waiver of late fees for not filing Form GSTR-3B for the tax periods from July 2017 to April 2021. Taxpayers originally had to file their GST between June 1, 2021, and August 31, 2021, to benefit from this amnesty scheme. This deadline has now been extended to the end of November.
The Finance Ministry further said that based on the multiple representations received, it has also extended the timelines for filing of an application for revocation of cancellation of registration to September 30, 2021, where the due date of filing of an application for revocation of cancellation of registration falls between March 1, 2020, to August 31, 2021.
“The extension would be applicable only in those cases where registrations have been canceled under clause (b) or clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 29 of the CGST Act,” the ministry further added.
Use of electronic verification code (EVC) for filing Form GSTR-3B and Form GSTR-1 by companies, instead of Digital Signature Certificate (DSC), had been implemented from April 27, 2021, to August 31, 2021. This facility has been further extended to October 31, 2021, the ministry said.
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“The extension of the closing date of late fee amnesty scheme and extension of time limit for filing of an application for revocation of cancellation of registration will benefit a large number of taxpayers, especially small taxpayers, who could not file their returns in time due to various reasons, mainly because of difficulties caused by COVID-19 pandemic, and whose registrations were canceled due to the same,” the Finance Ministry said.
Taxpayers are requested to avail the benefit of these extensions at the earliest to avoid a last-minute rush, it further added.
