22 lakh GST returns filed in August

Mumbai sept 21: Approximately 22 lakh GST returns for August were filed as of Wednesday.Many businesses have submitted their first return to the GSTN portal on the last day for tax filing.

Officials have said that "this is the second month of return filing under the goods and services tax (GST) regime and similar to last month, businesses thronged the GST Network portal on the last day to pay taxes."

GSTN has handled over 80,000 returns per hour on Wednesday." Sources have said that the government may decide to waive off penalty and interest for late filing of returns so that more number of people file returns in the first few months". Nearly 45 lakh businesses had filed GST returns in July fetching a revenue of Rs95,000 crore to the exchequer.

Earlier to ease compliance burden, the GST Council has decided to allow the businesses to file their initial tax returns in form GSTR-3B in the first six months of GST rollout until December. Accordingly, the GSTR-3B returns would have to be filed by the 20th of the next month.