Flurry of GST show cause notices heading to businesses for FY19, as deadline ends on Jan 31
With the due date approaching, businesses brace for a flurry of show cause notices from GST officials for the Fiscal Year 2018-19 regarding any possible shortfall in tax payment.
Section 73 of GST Act deals with the determination of tax not paid, or short-paid, or erroneously refunded, or input tax credit wrongly availed or utilised for any reason other than fraud, or any wilful misstatement, or suppression of facts. Under this section, an officer shall issue the notice at least three months prior to the time limit specified for issuance of order.
Earlier, the time limit for issuance of order related to the recovery of tax not paid, short paid, or input tax credit wrongly availed, or utilised for FY 2018-19 was March 31, 2024. However, on December 28, the Finance Ministry, through a notification, extended the timeline to April 30, 2024. This means the timeline for the issuance of show cause notices also get extended by one month, i.e., January 31, 2024. It may be noted that the extended deadlines mentioned above apply specifically to time-barring periods under Section 73. The GST department will still have an additional two years to issue notices and orders under suppression/misrepresentation cases under Section 74.
Industry sources say that a large number of notices were issued just before the due date for the Fiscal Year 2017-18. Various reports suggest that in December itself, GST authorities issued demand notices totalling Rs.1.45 lakh crore to around 1,500 businesses for inconsistencies in annual returns and input tax credit claims for the financial year 2018. Experts expect similar trend now, but they also feel there is a possibility of more arbitrariness.
