Background:
Earlier, the GST Council’s 47th meeting was held in Chandigarh on June 28th and 29th, 2022 under the chairmanship of the Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman. The GST Council had inter-alia recommended to waive the late fee for delay in filing Form GSTR-4 and to extend the waiver of late fee for delay in filing Form GSTR-4 for the Financial Year (“FY”) 2021-22 till July 28, 2022. Further, the GST Council’s in its 49th meeting held on February 18, 2023 had recommended amnesty scheme in respect of Form GSTR-4 by way of conditional waiver/reduction of late fee.
Notification:
Now, the CBIC vide Notification No. 02/2023–Central Tax dated March 31, 2023 has issued amendments in its earlier Notification No. 73/2017 – Central Tax dated December 29, 2017 (“Notification No. 73”), which waived the late fee payable for failure to furnish the return in Form GSTR-4 by the due date, in a following manner:
- New proviso has been inserted in Notification No. 73, in order to waive the amount of late fee payable under section 47 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (“the CGST Act”), which is in excess of INR 500 (CGST+SGST) and shall stand fully waived where the total amount of central tax payable in the Form GSTR-4 is nil, for the registered persons:
- who failed to furnish the return in Form GSTR-4 for the quarters from July, 2017 to March 2019 by the due date; or
- who failed to furnish the return in Form GSTR-4 for the FY 2019-20 to 2021-22 by the due date
but furnish its Form GSTR-4 between the period from April 1, 2023 to June 30, 2023.
The Notification can be accessed at: https://taxinformation.cbic.gov.in/view-pdf/1009685/ENG/Notifications