CHRONOLOGY OF CHANGES WITH RESPECT TO FORM GSTR 3B

The furnishing of details in FORM GSTR-1 under section 37 and in FORM GSTR-2 under section 38 has been extended time, rather filing of GSTR 2 has been temporarily suspended till the further decision in this regard, it has become imperative for the Government to introduce any such return on the basis of which the tax could be collected. Accordingly, As per CGST rule 61 (5)  it has been made compulsory to all the registered person (who are supposed to file GSTR 1 & GSTR 2) to file  return in FORM GSTR-3B electronically through the common portal, either directly or through a Facilitation Centre notified by the Commissioner

Initially vide Notification No. 21/2017 of Central Tax New Delhi, 08th August, 2017, the form GSTR-3B has been introduced just for the month of July and August and the following due date has been prescribed for filing of this return:

S.No.	Month	Last Date of filing of GSTR-3B
(1)	(2)	(3)
1	July, 2017	20th, August, 2017
2	August, 2017	20th, September, 2017

Later on, vide notification No. 35/2017 of Central Tax dated, 15th September, 2017 the filing of Form GSTR 3B has been extended up to the month of December, 2017. That means every registered dealer who was required to file Form GSTR1 & 2 is now mandated to file form GSTR 3B for every month up to December according to the following schedule:

S.No.	Month	Last Date of filing of GSTR-3B
(1)	(2)	(3)
1.	August, 2017	20th September, 2017
2	September, 2017	20th October, 2017.
3	October, 2017	20th November, 2017
4	November, 2017	20th December, 2017.
5	December, 2017	20th January, 2018

 It has also been provided in the said notification that every registered person furnishing the return in FORM GSTR-3B shall, subject to the provisions of section 49 of the said Act, discharge his liability towards tax, interest, penalty, fees or any other amount payable under the said Act by debiting the electronic cash ledger or electronic credit ledger, as the case may be, not later than the last date, as detailed in column (3) of the said Table, on which he is required to furnish the said return.

Despite the fact that the return of Form GSTR 3B was quite simple the large numer of registered dealer could not file the return with in the time prescribed in the notification. There were number of reasons for such non-filing including the system error at GST portal. Such non-filing has invited a heavy penalty based on Rs. 200/- per day from the defaulters. A lot many voices has been raised and large number of representation has gone for waiver of such penalty. Finally, the Central Government, on the recommendations of the Council, vide notification No. 50/2017 – Central Tax dated 24th October, 2017, waives the late fee payable under section 47 of the said Act, for all registered persons who failed to furnish the return in FORM GSTR-3B for the months of August and September, 2017 by the due date. 

Since, the filing of GSTR 2 has been postponed till further decision in this regard by the council it has been mandated vide notification No. 56/2017 of Central Tax dated 15th November, 2017 the return in FORM GSTR-3B for the month as specified in column (2) of the Table shall be furnished electronically through the common portal, on or before the last date as specified in the corresponding entry in column (3) of the said Table, namely :- 

Table

S.No.	Month	Last Date of filing of GSTR-3B
(1)	(2)	(3)
1.	January, 2018	20th February, 2018
2	February, 2018	20th March, 2018
3	March, 2018	20th April, 2018

The terms in respect of discharge his liability towards tax, interest, penalty, fees or any other amount payable under the said Act by debiting the electronic cash ledger or electronic credit ledger would remain same.

 Moreover vide notification No. 64/2017 of Central Tax dated 15th November, 2017 the Central Government has rationalised the provision of in respect of imposition of penalty on late filing of , hereby waives the amount of late fee payable by any registered person for failure to furnish the return in FORM GSTR3B for the month of October, 2017 onwards by the due date under section 47 of the said Act. Accordingly:

where the total amount of central tax payable in the said return is nil	The amount of penalty would be Rs. 10/- for every day of default under CGST and Rs. 10/- per day for SGST totalling to Rs. 20/- per day for default period.
In other cases	The amount of penalty would be Rs. 25/- for every day of default under CGST and Rs. 25/- per day for SGST totalling to Rs. 50/- per day for default period.

In conclusion the GSTR 3B is now required to be filed by registered dealers for every month up to 31^st March, 2017 by the 20^th of the next month along with all payments towards tax, interest, fees, penalty etc. In case of late of filing of return a penalty of Rs. 20/- per day has been prescribed where the tax payable is Nil and in other cases the penalty of Rs. 50/- per day has been prescribed for every day of default.

Form GSTR 3B is a simple return that asks for the information in respect of consolidated sales under various heads like B2B, B2C, export sales etc., Input tax credit and some other information on the basis of which final tax payable for the month could be determined. If the registered dealers maintain their account on any of the GST enabled bookkeeping software, then this information could be easily collated for filing form GSTR 3B on GSTR portal. Some accounting software for small businesses even provide the facility of preparing Form GSTR 3B from the data input or recorded during the course of transactions. Hence, it makes sense to automatize the business process and get free from compliance hassles.