Finance Ministry extends deadlines for GST officers to issue demand notices for FY'19, FY'20

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) officers have been provided more time to issue demand notices for discrepancies in annual returns for 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years. On Thursday, the government extended the deadline in this regard for 2018-19 fiscal to April 30, 2024 and for 2019-20 fiscal to August 31, 2024. A notification has been issued by the Finance Ministry in this regard.

Currently, the deadline is March 31, 2024 and June 30, 2024, for 2018-19 and 2019-20 financial years, respectively. AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said the extension pertains to issuance of orders for the recovery of tax liabilities, whether due to non-payment, underpayment, or erroneous claim of input tax credit, for the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20. Previously, the government had revised these deadlines. For the fiscal 2018-19, the deadline was extended to March 31, 2024 from the original deadline of December 31, 2023. Similarly, for the fiscal year 2019-20, the deadline was pushed to June 30, 2024, from the initial deadline of March 31, 2023.

In April, tax officials disclosed that the GST evasion detection by tax officers almost doubled year-on-year (y-o-y) to over ₹1.01 lakh crore in FY23, of which a recovery of ₹21,000 crore was made by the officers of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI).

Net direct tax collection had surged by 22 per cent to reach Rs 10.5-lakh crore between April 1 and November 9, the Finance Ministry had said. With this number and a strong growth in goods and services tax (GST), the government is hopeful of meeting its fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal year. Direct taxes include personal income tax (PIT) and corporate income tax (CIT), besides taxes such as securities transaction tax (STT).

(With PTI inputs)