Businesses have less than three weeks left to have one last opportunity to claim pending Input Tax Credit (ITC) and to settle errors and omissions under Goods and Services Tax (GST) mechanism. Experts also caution about some new changes brought in this fiscal year, which will have impact on their claims.

CGST Law 2017 says “A registered person shall not be entitled to take input tax credit in respect of any invoice or debit note for supply of goods or services or both after the November 30 following the end of financial year to which such invoice or debit note pertains or furnishing of the relevant annual return, whichever is earlier.” This can be done either through filing GSTR 1/GSTR 3B for October or annual returns through GSTR 9 pr GSTR 9 C.

GSTR 1 is filed by the taxpayers in order to list out the details of the outward supplies for the month as well as their tax liability/ GSTR-3B is a simplified summary return and the purpose of the return is for taxpayers to declare their summary GST liabilities for a particular tax period and discharge these liabilities.

A normal taxpayer is required to file Form GSTR-3B returns for every tax period. For monthly filers, due date for filing of Form GSTR-3B is 20th day of the month following the month (tax period) for which the return pertains.

Due date for filing monthly return in GSTR 1 is Monday, while it is November 20 for GSTR3B. However, both can be filed till November 30 but with late fee.

At the same time, though, annual return for FY 24 can be filed till December 31, but as provision in law talks about earliest date among all the three, so November 30 is technically the due date for correction in GST Compliances.

Pawan Arora, Partner with Athena Law Associates and Co-Chair of - Co-Chairman of the Indirect Tax Committee lists four corrections/amendments for the FY24 through filing GST returns of October.

These include – availment of ITC pertaining to invoices, issuance of credit notes for adjustment in output tax liability, revision of GSTR-1 for correction/amendment of any error or omission and revision. “These actions can be taken through GSTR1/GSTR3B of October 2024 on or before November 30, 2024,” he said.

Alternative, these actions can be also be done with annual return filing, M S Mani, Partner will Deloitte said: “Annual return filing provides the last possible opportunity to rectify all errors and omissions in the monthly returns specifically including Input Tax Credit (ITC) omissions of the past financial year. Since GSTN has made a quite few changes in its portal, tax payers have to be vigilant on the omissions that can be rectified and those which are beyond redemptions.”

A circular issued on October 15 talks about changes made in this fiscal related with pending ITC availment and correction in GST Compliances.

For example, it has been said that in cases, where any investigation/proceedings in respect of wrong availment of ITC alleging contravention of GST law has been initiated, but no demand notice/statement has been issued, then ITC can be availed based on order issued by proper office. In case demand notices have been issued, then the Adjudicating Authority will pass the order keeping in mind changes made in law. Same will happen in case of appeal.

Related Topics