The relief for non levy of late fee and interest has been provided as under for GSTR 3B and GSTR 1 vide following notifications:
| Particular | Relief | Notification |
| Form GSTR 1 | No Late fee shall be levied subject to Condition | Notification No. 33/2020 –Central Tax dt. 3.4.2020 |
| Form GSTR 3B | No Late fee shall be levied subject to Condition | Notification No. 32/2020 –Central Tax dt. 3.4.2020 |
| Interest | Interest is reduced on late payment of tax for specified period | Notification No. 31/2020 –Central Tax dt. 3.4.2020 |
However, in all the above three cases, it is important to note the conditions, which is brought to the knowledge for all. Some of the instances are as under (some months are left in the below table):
| Relief | Period | Condition |
| No Late fee shall be levied for late filing of GSTR 1 subject to Condition | March, 2020, April, 2020 and May, 2020 and for the quarter ending 31stMarch,2020 | Taxpayer furnishes the said details in FORM GSTR-1, on or before the 30thday of June,2020. |
| No Late fee shall be levied for late filing of GSTR 3B subject to Condition | For taxpayers having aggregate turnover more than Rs. 5 Crore:
Feb 2020 – Apr 2020 |
If return in Form GSTR-3B is furnished on or before the 24th day of June, 2020 |
| Taxpayers having an aggregate turnover of more than Rs. 1.5 crores and up to Rs. 5 crores
February, 2020, March, 2020 |
If return in FORM GSTR-3B is furnished on or before the 29th day of June,2020 | |
| Even interest is reduced on late payment of tax | For taxpayers having aggregate turnover more than Rs. 5 Crore:
Feb 2020 – Apr 2020 |
If return in FORM GSTR-3B is furnished on or before the 24th day of June, 2020 |
| Taxpayers having an aggregate turnover of more than Rs. 1.5 crores and up to Rs. 5 crores
February, 2020, March, 2020 |
If return in FORM GSTR-3Bis furnished on or before the 29thday of June, 2020 | |
| Taxpayers having an aggregate turnover of up to Rs. 1.5 crores
February, 2020 |
If return in FORM GSTR-3Bis furnished on or beforethe30thday of June, 2020 |
One can clearly notice that the relief given for reduced late fee and interest is not absolute for the period. It is conditional that the compliance for this period should be completed within a specified period. If the compliance is not done within the specified period, the waiver for late fees or reduced interest shall not be available. Rather it shall be applicable at full rate even for this period.
Thus, any person who fails to file the returns or statements for the above period within the specified period shall bear the entire late fee and interest at the normal rates viz., Rs. 100/day and interest @18%.
Also, no relief from late fee and interest during the present period for period prior to March 20, 2020 is not available. In other words, if anyone’s return for December 2019 or January 2020 is pending to be filed, he shall not be getting relief from late fees or interest at reduced rate during this period. Taxpayers should be very careful and should not read the reliefs given as absolute.
However, it is important for government also to understand that during this period, the relief should be absolute for all periods since even if an assessee wants to comply, he cannot comply the returns or statements for past periods and thus, relief from late fee and reduced interest should be extended to all non compliances even for past period for which he failed to file return / statement. This would otherwise lead to unnecessary litigations in future against levy of penalties and late fees levied for returns / statements for past periods as assesses were forced in a situations where compliances could not be made. It is a period of stress – both financial and mental and though every citizen must contribute to PM relief funds to the best of his capacity, yet, levy of late fees and interest should be relaxed on all assessees.
Similar, no relief is avaiable for other complainces like non submission of Annual return for FY 2017-18 etc. The relief is for compliances which became due within this period.
