Credit and Finance for MSMEs: MSMEs and startups, reeling below the Covid effect, have urged the government to extend the GST payment and return filing deadlines for the month of March, April, and May to June 30, 2021. According to a current survey of MSMEs and startups by neighborhood social media platform LocalCircles, as a great deal as 80 per cent respondents recommended extension of deadlines describing challenges faced in filing GST payments and returns for the month of March. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had supplied a comparable extension on ITR filing and GST return deadline last year.
“MSMEs and startups have been requesting extension of the GST payment and filing deadlines as in many states there have been curfew and lockdown restrictions that have been imposed since early or mid-April preventing them from meeting these deadlines. The respondents want the government to extend the deadline without penalty,” Sachin Taparia, Founder and Chairman, LocalCircles told TheSpuzz Online. The survey, performed among April 21-22, saw the participation of 2,370 startups, MSMEs, traders, and service providers positioned in 122 districts of India. LocalCircles had also escalated the request for action to Sitharaman by means of a letter sent last week.
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The government had currently announced the extension of the deadline for payments below the Direct Tax Vivad Se Vishwas Act, 2020, and some compliances below the Income Tax Act by two months till June 30. The relief presented to taxpayers, tax consultants, and other stakeholders last week incorporated, “Time limit for passing of any order for assessment or reassessment under the Income-tax Act, 1961 the time limit for which is provided under section 153 or section 153B thereof; Time limit for passing an order consequent to direction of DRP under sub-section (13) of section 144C of the Act; Time limit for issuance of notice under section 148 of the Act for reopening the assessment where income has escaped assessment; and Time Limit for sending intimation of processing of Equalisation Levy under sub-section (1) of section 168 of the Finance Act 2016,” according to the Finance Ministry statement.
Traders’ body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had also urged the government last week to defer 11 GST compliances and 15 compliances below the Income Tax Act by 3 months. According to the federation, which represents about 8 crore traders across 40,000 trade associations in India, returns such as GSTR-3B, GSTR-1, GSTR-4, CMP-08, GSTR-5, GSTR-5A, GSTR-6, GSTR-7, and GSTR-8 have been due in April along with the due date for concern of TDS certificate for tax deducted below section 194-IA, IB, and 194M, a quarterly statement in respect of foreign remittances in kind 15CC, furnishing kind 3BB, kind 24G, challan-cum-statement in respect of tax deducted below section 194-IA, and so forth., of the Income Tax Act.