Govt must extend GST filing deadline to rev up collections further
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Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection, which is supposed to be the barometer of economic activity in the country, in April this year was an all-time high at Rs 1,41,384 crore from an all-time low revenue of Rs 32,172 crore in the year-ago period. To elaborate it, the poor GST collections in April last year was mainly due to a nationwide lockdown. Interestingly, GST collections have bettered on month-on-month basis too. The collection in April is over 14 per cent higher than the previous record of Rs 1,23,902 crore in March 2021.
Not to mention that the GST collections have been above Rs 1 lakh-crore mark at a stretch for the last six months (October 2020 to March 2021) in a row. Of course, it comes as a big succour amidst the difficult times of second wave of pandemic.
In fact, this official figure of GST collections goes much beyond the prediction made by Ecowrap, which had estimated it to be at Rs 1.15 lakh crore for the month of April.
The above estimate is also justified with the E-Way bill collections, as per Ecowrap report. In 2020 between February and March GST numbers had plummeted. However, March had also witnessed one week of complete lockdown.
In April, with lockdown firmly in place, GST E-way bills hit rock bottom, before slowly gaining lost ground over the subsequent months when the country was slowly unlocking and reached 4.94 crore in August. However, it is heartening to note that despite the curbs due to the second wave, the All India GST E-way bill until April 25 have reached 4.89 crore and we estimate it to cross 5.5 crore comfortably, given the past trends.
Now there lies a grey area government must gave a look at. The due date for filing GST returns for March and April have been relaxed merely by 15 to 30 days in the time of such distress with payment of interest at 9 per cent and 18 per cent beyond specified delay.
The central government has its own way of looking at things. It thinks that the Covid second wave will be over by the end of May 2021 and that everything will be normal for them despite the public running around for saving the life of their near and dear ones. At this time, sincere relaxation in compliance and interest burden is required as was allowed in 2020. But this doesn't seem to be right approach.
Actually, we have to live with Covid for some more days in future and May month may not be the correct deadline for Covid to be over. The small businesses are already facing financing problems and burden of late fees and penalty will further increase their woes. Therefore, it is time the government should have given it a serious thought and extended the due date for filing of GST returns for a substantial period of time.
