Great news for small business owners from the Central Government! The Finance Ministry has shared an important update that brings relief for small businesses dealing with GST returns.
They are now exempted from filing GSTR-9, a form previously required for those with a turnover of up to Rs 2 crore.
This form involved annual return submissions, and the recent announcement means that small traders no longer need to worry about filling out this particular form.
The Finance Ministry revealed this positive development through a tweet on its official handle, stating that there has been a significant 65 percent increase in the number of people filing GST returns over the past five years.
As of April 2023, the count has risen to 1.13 crore individuals filing GST returns, and the total number of registered taxpayers under GST has reached 1.40 crore, up from 1.06 crore in April 2018.
According to the Finance Ministry, the growing enthusiasm for filing returns is attributed to the formulation of GST rules and procedures.
In the current fiscal year, an impressive 90 percent of eligible taxpayers are submitting GSTR-3B returns by the end of the filing month, compared to 68 percent in the year 2017-18, before the GST implementation.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently expressed her satisfaction with the increasing GST data during a session in the Lok Sabha.
Since its implementation on July 1, 2017, GST has replaced over a dozen local taxes, including excise duty, service tax, and VAT.
The number of GSTR-3B filers has surged from 72.49 lakh in April 2018 to 1.13 crore by April 2023.
Notably, the monthly GST collection in November exceeded Rs 1.68 lakh crore, marking the sixth instance in the current fiscal year where the monthly gross GST collection has surpassed Rs 1.60 lakh crore.
This underscores the continued success of the GST system in terms of revenue generation.
