GST Returns :

Filing GST return under the GST regime is crucial as non-compliance and delay will result in penalties and affect your compliance rating and timely refunds.

All registered businesses have to file monthly, quarterly and/or annual GST Returns based on the type of business . In this article, we cover the following topics:

1. What is GST Return?
2. Who has to file GST Returns?
3. What are the types of GST Returns?
4. Late Fees for not Filing Return on Time

1. What is GST Return?

A return is a document containing details of income which a taxpayer is required to file with the tax administrative authorities. This is used by tax authorities to calculate tax liability.

Under GST, a registered dealer has to file GST returns that includes:

• Purchases
• Sales
• Output GST (On sales)
• Input tax credit (GST paid on purchases)

2. Who has to file GST Returns?

In the GST regime, any regular business has to file three monthly returns and one annual return. This amounts to 37 returns in a year.

The beauty of the system is that one has to manually enter details of one monthly return – GSTR-1. The other two returns – GSTR 2 & 3 will get auto-populated by deriving information from GSTR-1 filed by you and your vendors.

There are separate returns required to be filed by special cases such as composition dealers

3. What are the types of GST Returns?

Here is a list of all the returns to be filed under the GST Law along with the due dates.

3.1. Any regular business:

As per Act

Return Form	Particulars	Interval	Due Date
GSTR-1	Details of outward supplies of taxable goods and/or services effected	Monthly*	10th of the next month
GSTR-2	Details of inward supplies of taxable goods and/or services effected claiming input tax credit.	Monthly*	15th of the next month
GSTR-3	Monthly return on the basis of finalization of details of outward supplies and inward supplies along with the payment of amount of tax.	Monthly*	20th of the next month
GSTR-9	Annual Return	Annually	31st December of next financial year
GSTR-3B	Provisional return for the months of July 2017 to March 2018	Monthly	20th of the nxt month

4. Late Fees for not Filing Return on Time

If GST Returns are not filed within time, you will be liable to pay interest and a late fee.

Interest is 18% per annum. It has to be calculated by the tax payer on the amount of outstanding tax to be paid. Time period will be from the next day of filing (26th/ 29th Aug) to the date of payment.

Late fee is Rs. 100 per day per Act. So it is 100 under CGST & 100 under SGST. Total will be Rs. 200/day. Maximum is Rs. 5,000. There is no late fee on IGST.