Govt extends date for filing GST returns, tax payment by 5 days

New Delhi: Traders on Saturday complained that the GST portal was not working, making it difficult for them to file returns. For some August 20 was the last date for the filing of their returns.

In the evening, the GST Implementation Committee, consisting of state and Centre officers, decided to extend the last date for payment of the GST for July to August 25.

Earlier, the last date for payment of taxes and filing of the GST returns in Form 3B for July was kept as 20th of August 2017.  “Since it is the first return to be filed under GST, the tax payers and the tax practitioners have requested for few more days to file their return.  Also, there have been requests from states hit with floods to extend the last date,” said finance ministry.

It said some technical glitches were also experienced. “It has been specified that for those tax payers, who do not want to avail of transitional credit in Trans 1 this month, the date for filing return will be August 25. And for those who want to fill up Trans 1, the last date is August 28, as announced earlier,” said the ministry.

Earlier in the day traders complained about the GST portal not working properly. “Traders across country are disappointed as the GST portal did not work throughout the day,” said  Confedera-tion of All India Traders.

The Cait demanded the government to extend the date. “It is also reported that banks are reluctant in receiving tax payments since they have no information as to how the entries and under which head they will accept such payments, and without tax payment, Form 3B will not be accepted by the portal,” it said.