What is GSTR 9 Annual Return

All the registered taxpayers under GST are required to file the GSTR 9 Annual Return form, wherein they have to disclose all the details regarding the outward and the inward supply that they either made or it was made to them during the last financial year. They also have to mention any income tax credit that they have claimed, any taxes paid or any return claimed by them. They have to fill it out under different heads of tax, for example, CGST, SGST, IGST and HSN codes.

Who should file GSTR 9 Annual Return

All the registered taxpayers under the GST are supposed to file the GSTR 9 Annual Return form. There are certain exceptions to it as well. the following people are not supposed to file GSTR 9 Annual Return form:

1.      The taxpayers who are opting for the composition scheme. They have to file the GSTR 9A.

2.      Those who are come under the category of casual taxable persons.

3.      Those who come under the category of input service distributors.

4.      Those who are already paying TDS as per section 51 of the CGST Act.

5.      The Non-Resident taxable persons.

What does GSTR 9 Annual Return consist of

The GSTR 9 Annual Return form is divided into 6 parts and 19 sections. A detailed analysis of the 6 parts are as follows:

Part 1- the first part covers all the basic details required such as the financial year, their legal name, if they have any trade name and GSGIN.

Part 2-the second part deals with the consolidated details of all your outward supplies and the advances that you have received upon which you are liable to pay tax. You also have to provide details of the outward supply upon which you are not liable to pay taxes.

Part 3- the third part deals with Input Tax Credit (ITC) details. This has further been divided into three sub categories.

Part 4- the fourth part covers the details of the actual tax paid during the financial year.

Part 5- the fifth part deals with any sort of amendments made.

Part 6- the sixth part deals with the details of any refund or demand or supply that you may have received from the composition tax payers, any goods that you may have sent on approval basis, if any late fees had been paid or you are supposed to pay, etc.

Penalty for delay

It is very important to file the GSTR 9 Annual Return form on time. Any delay in filing the same on time will attract heavy fine. Thus, as per section 47(2) of the Central Goods and Service Tax Act 2017, an individual who does not file the GSTR 9 form on time will be liable to pay Rs. 100 per day under CGST and Rs. 100 per day under SGST. Thus a total amount of Rs, 200 per day will be imposed upon any individual who fails to file the form on time. However, the fine won’t be more than 0.25% of his annual turnover.

Due Date and extensions

Usually, the due date for filing the GSTR 9 Annual Return form is 1^st December of the following financial year. Say for example, for the financial year 2017-2018 the dues date will be December 31^st, 2018.

But there has been a lot of extensions granted to people for filing their annual return. The following table shows the due date of filing the GSTR 9 Annual return form: