Key Decisions & Recommendations Made by 40th GST Council Meeting

The 40th GST council meeting was held on Friday under the Chairmanship of Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman through video conferencing. The meeting was also attended by Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs Shri Anurag Thakur besides Finance Ministers of States & UTs and senior officers of the Ministry of Finance& States/ UTs.

The interest rate on late submission of returns for the month of February, March, and April is reduced from 18 % to 9% till September 30, 2020.

As a measure to clean up pendency in return filing, a late fee for non-furnishing FORM GSTR-3B for the tax period from July 2017 to January 2020 has been reduced/waived as under: -

• ‘NIL’ late fee if there is no tax liability
• Maximum late fee capped at Rs 500 per return if there is any tax liability
• The reduced rate of a late fee would apply for all the GSTR-3B returns furnished between July 1, 2020 to September 30, 2020.

In another major decision, the Government allowed taxpayers, who could not get cancelled GST registrations restored in time, to apply for revocation of cancellation of registration up to September 30, 2020.

The Council however postponed rationalisation of GST rates for textiles, footwear and fertiliser, even though all members agreed that the duty rates need to be corrected as these products faced inverted duty structures.

Certain clauses of the Finance Act, 2020 amending CGST Act 2017 and IGST Act, 2017 to be brought into force from 30.06.2020.