Due to the outbreak of Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) across many countries of the world, including India and challenges faced by tax payers in meeting compliance requirements under various provisions of the CGST Act, the Government had inter-alia issued Notification No. 35/2020-CT dated 03-04-2020 issued under Section 168A of the CGST Act,2017 for extending due date of compliance which falls during the period from 20-03-2020 to 29-06-2020 to 30-06-2020.
Subsequently vide notification No. 55/2020-Central Tax dated 27-06-2020, the above Notification was amended and further relief was provided to the tax payers as well as tax authorities, by further extending the compliance window for compliances due for the period 20.03.2020 to 29.08.2020 to 31.08.2020 which has now lapsed.
Further another amendment was made in Notification No. 35/2020-CT dated 03-04-2020 vide Notification No. 65/2020-Central Tax dated 01-09-2020, by inserting a proviso to clause (i) of said Notification. The proviso reads as under:
“Provided that where, any time limit for completion or compliance of any action, by any authority,
has been specified in, or prescribed or notified under section 171 of the said Act, which falls during the period from the 20th day of March, 2020 to the 29th day of November, 2020, and where completion or compliance of such action has not been made within such time, then, the time-limit for completion or compliance of such action, shall be extended up to the 30th day of November, 2020.”
It may be noted here that Section 171 of the CGST Act, 2017 deals with the Anti-profiteering measure accordingly the authority to which the above proviso is referring to is the Anti profiteering Authority. With insertion of above proviso said Authority got further breather of three months to complete any action or comply with any action as any such action falls during the period from the 20th day of March, 2020 to the 29th day of November, 2020 can be completed by the anti profiteering authority by 30-11-2020.
The above breather to anti-profiteering authority has further been extended by another four months vide Notification No. 91/2020- Central Tax dated 14-12-2020 wherein action which falls during the period from the 20th day of March, 2020 to the 29th day of March, 2021 could be completed by the anti profiteering authority by 31-03-2021.
Thus it can be said neither the tax payer nor the jurisdictional GST officers get any relief out of the latest GST Notification issued and the relief is restricted only to the Anti Profiteering Authority.
The Notification No. 91/2020- Central Tax dated 14-12-2020 is given below:
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Frah Saeed is a law graduate specializing in the core field of indirect taxes and is the Co-founder of taxwallah.com. She has authored many publications on GST and is into full-time consultancy on GST to big corporates. She as a part of taxwallah.com heads a team comprising of Chartered Accountants and Advocates and plays a key role in our mission to disseminate GST knowledge to all.
