Nearly 3.7 mn GSTR-3B filed so far for September

Pandey said the GSTN system is stable and has been handling data at just 30% of its capacity

Nearly 3.7 million GST returns for September have been filed till 1900 hours and 75,000 sales data is being uploaded on the GSTN portal on an hourly basis, its Chairman Ajay Bhushan Pandey said today.

The deadline for filing the initial returns in GSTR- 3Bfor September under the Goods and Services Tax regime ends midnight tonight.

In an interview to PTI, Pandey said the GSTN systemis stable and has been handling data at just 30 per cent ofits capacity with 20 lakh returns being uploaded in last two days.

Pandey said 3.6 million returns have been filed till 1900 hours.

"The pace of filing is picking up with an average 75,000 returns being uploaded on an hourly basis. GSTN system isstable. We hope more people are able to file return within thedue date," he said.

Since the roll-out of GST on July 1, this is the thirdmonth for which businesses have to file GSTR-3B returnslisting out details of their sales.

For July and August, 5.5 million and 5 million returns had been filed, fetching Rs 95,000 crore and Rs 92,000 crore in revenue, respectively.

Pandey said that in the first two months, businesses have also uploaded returns after the end of due date and the number for September returns would go up eventually.

"If we see the capacity of the network, GSTN is using only 30 per cent of its capacity. So, there is a lot of headroom available for the server to upload more number of returns," Pandey said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had last month appealed to businesses to file GST returns before the due date and not wait till the last date to file returns.

To ease compliance burden, the GST Council has allowed businesses to file their initial tax returns in form GSTR-3B in the first six months of GST rollout till December.

Accordingly, the GSTR-3B returns would have to be filed by the 20th of the next month, which means September returns have to be uploaded by October 20.

The GST Network (GSTN) had faced glitches during the GSTR-3B filing for July, which had forced the government to extend the due date for filing of returns and had also waived the late payment fee.

However, the network worked fine at the time of return filing for August.

The Group of Minister under Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi has met twice to look into the issues faced by GSTN and has smoothened its functioning after taking into account the troubles faced by stakeholders.

The Business Standard, New Delhi, 21^st  October, 2017