The month of June has shown marked improvement in GST collections, thanks to a number of relaxations granted by the GST Council along with regular persuasion and facilitation by the field officers of commercial tax organisation of the State, subsequent to gradual unlocking the situation.
Commissioner Commercial Tax and GST Odisha, SK Lohani has reviewed the tax collections. OGST collection of June 2020 is Rs 759.17 crore against the collection of Rs 804.49 crore during the corresponding period of last year which is less by Rs 45 crore (-) 5.6%.
However due to lockdown, the OGST collection of the 1st quarter of 2020-21 (April-June) registered a negative growth of (-) 32.79% as the total collection could be Rs 1,560.20 crore as against Rs 2,321.39 crore collected during the corresponding period of the preceding year.
Similarly, the Gross GST Collection (CGST, IGST, SGST and Cess) in the first quarter of 2020-21 (Apr-June) is Rs 5,192.30 crore as against Rs 8019.44 crore during the preceding quarter of 2019-20 registering a negative growth rate of (-) 35.25%. However, the situation has improved during the last month of June 2020 in which collection of Rs 2,693.75 crore as against Rs 2923.47 crore achieved during last June. Thus, the shortfall was only by (-) 7.86% during June 2020.
The movement of vehicles which is an important indicator of restoration of normalcy in business activity is showing an encouraging trend.
The average daily inter-State waybills generated during February 2020 was 22,104 which dipped to 3,356 during April but improved significantly to 16,817 during the last week of June. Similarly, the average daily intra-State way bills generated during February 2020 was 24,734 which dipped to 8,517 during April. However, this improved to 23, 577(95%) during last week of June which represents a very healthy trend.
Further, imposition of nationwide lockdown to contain Covid-19 adversely affected timely filing of returns for the tax periods of February, March and April 2020 also. Realising the difficulties of the taxpayers, the Government waived the late fee for the delay in return filing and also allowed late payment of tax due without interest / reduced interest at 9%.
Most of the big taxpayers availed the above benefits and filed their returns within the revised due dates. Those who are yet to file returns for the above periods are strongly advised to file their returns immediately.
The taxpayers having turnover up to Rs 5.0 crore were required to file returns for March tax period by July 5, 2020 and for April tax period by July 9, 2020 with no interest. Failure to file GSTR 3B by the above mentioned dates will attract interest at 9% immediately after the due dates. All taxpayers are advised to file returns by the due dates to avoid payment of interest.
The Government has further decided to cap the maximum late fee for Form GSTR-3B at Rs 500 per return for the tax period from July 2017 to July 2020.
The reduced fee will be levied only if returns are filed before September 30, 2020. It has also notified that there will be NIL late fees if there is no tax liability. In order to further simplify the process of returns filing, GSTN has already introduced filing of monthly and quarterly sales statements (GSTR 1) and tax return (GSTR 3B) through SMS for those tax payers having NIL liability.
Lohani has advised all the field officers of Commercial Tax and GST, Odisha to contact the tax defaulters personally, apprise them of the facilities and encourage them to file all the backlog returns at the earliest.