On the GSTN Portal, recently certain changes have been made in order to provide additional facilities to the tax payers. Firstly, they have introduced the facility of filing the GST PMT 09 which deals with the transfer of money and secondly, a facility has been provided in order to file GSTR 3B Return through an Electronic Verification Code i.e. EVC meaning that the taxpayers won’t need to affix their DSC in order to file their returns. Although this facility has only been provided to the OPC and individual tax payers. This does not include either the Companies or the LLPs or any other entities.
The Covid 19 pandemic has caused a lot of ruckus in the entire world. The Government of India has given out a lot of measures in order to provide relief to the citizens of India. These relaxations are for all those compliances that should be strictly followed but the current times do not allow it to happen. Once such relaxation given by the Central government was in terms of filing GSTR 3B. the government has notified that the taxpayers are now allowed to file same without a DSC.
The Digital Signature Certificate or a DSC refers to a sign that can be used on online applications be it a GST Return or any other business related compliance form that has to be digitally signed. All the taxpayers who are registered under the GST will have to file the GST Return especially the ones filing on behalf of the enterprises with the help of the Digital Signature Certificate.
The taxpayers have faced a lot of trouble while filing their GST return during the lockdown specially with the mandatory condition of affixing the Digital Signature Certificate. It is not actually available physically with the taxpayers who are registered under the GST for the purpose of filing the GST. It is a well - known fact that GST can be paid with the help of certain adjustments in the GSTR 3B return that the entities file. Thus those taxes were being paid either through the utilization of accumulated ITC or with the help of cash. A lot of companies were failing to file the same without the availability of the DSC and thus it resulted in hindrance even in claiming ITC as for that it is important the 3B return has been filed.
Thus in order to resolve the said issue, the government decided to remove the mandatory condition of DSC and add an option of EVC i.e. Electronic Verification Code.
