GSTN brings in new filing way

New Delhi: Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the IT backbone of the new tax regime, on Monday said it has put a new function on its portal to allow taxpayers choose the frequency of filing GSTR 1 form on quarterly or monthly basis.

Taxpayers with annual aggregate turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore in the previous financial year or anticipated in the current financial year can avail the option of filing quarterly returns. Form GSTR 1 summarises all the sales of a taxpayer.

This has been done as per decision taken in the 23rd GST Council Meeting.

After giving their option, taxpayers can file GSTR 1 for the relevant return periods, the GST Networks said in a statement.

It further said that taxpayers who opt for quarterly filing will have to select the last month of the quarter from the drop down menu.

Further, all taxpayers who opt for monthly filing can now file GSTR 1 from August onwards till November. Filing of return of previous month is mandatory.

GSTN has been set up to provide IT infrastructure and services to the central as well as state governments, taxpayers and other stakeholders for implementation of the GST, which came into force on July 1 this year.

Meanwhile, the government has said that it is too early to comment on GST collections, which slipped about 10 per cent in November — over the last month — to Rs 85,931 crore.

As per the information provided by the finance ministry to the Lok Sabha on Friday, as many as 33.2 lakh new taxpayers have registered themselves under GST till December 11 from the day of roll out on July 1.

“It is too early to comment on the changes in the tax collection as a result of changes in the tax base because of factors like overlap of taxpayers pre and post introduction of GST, variation in exemption limits between Centre and States and among States and mechanism of apportionment of fund under IGST,” minister of state for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said in a written reply to a question.

He also informed that total number of tax payers who migrated from pre-GST regime was 64.12 lakh as on December 11.

The GST collection was Rs 95,132 crore in October. It was over Rs 93,000 crore in September as well as August.