GST Council: SMEs with turnover of Rs 1.50 crore to file quarterly returns

The 22nd GST council meeting chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday decided to provide in some relief for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. 

GST council had allowed SMEs with annual turnover of up to Rs 1.50 crore to file for quarterly returns. Also the threshold limit for compensation scheme have been increased to Rs 1 crore from the current Rs 75 lakh to ease in a move to ease tax filing for small traders. 

Traders will now have to pay fixed tax rate between 1% - 5% under the composition scheme. 

Haseeb Drabu Jammu & Kashmir Finance Minister stated that GST council focus was on small traders & exporters & on reducing compliance distress

This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in defending the government's track record in handling the economy, said that both demonetisation and GST were structural reforms, but if any sector needs temporary assistance due to this, the government would provide it. This is while he specifically referred to exporters and SMEs.

Many industrialists and exporters have been facing slowdown in their business operations while shifting to the GST regime. 

A meeting was scheduled on September 28, 2017, between Jaitley and industry representatives like Ficci, CII, Federation of Indian Export Oragnisations (FIEO) and FISM to discuss various issues faced by them related to GST. 

A India Ratings report mentioned on October 05, that transition to the GST regime would significantly affect companies with weak credit profiles because of a short-term liquidity mismatch due to delays in the availability of input tax credit (ITC).

With over 33 lakh businesses filing the final GSTR-1 return, the GoM has tasked GSTN to send reminder text messages to the remaining 20 lakh businesses which are yet to submit the tax forms.

The last date for filing of final sales returns for July in GSTR-1 form is October 10, while the date for uploading of purchase returns in GSTR-2 is October 31.

The final GSTR-3, matching GSTR-1 and 2, is to be filed by November 10.

In a meeting with the Revenue Secretary last month, exporters had said that an estimated Rs 65,000 crore is locked up in GST refunds.