GST Penalty and Offences

Goods and Services Tax is a mandatory tax levied on all goods and services provided in the country. The GST on the products is collected by the dealers and sellers of the product who in turn pay it to the government. The sellers are benefitted as they get credit for the GST payments to the government. A breach in following the GST rules is considered a GST offence. The various offences declared by the government have been listed below. A breach in the rules can lead to serious penalties and legal action taken towards that particular seller or business.

Offences Under GST

A breach of GST rules and the GST Act is considered a GST offence. There are 21 offences under GST, they are listed as follows:

1. A supplier supplies goods or services without any proper invoice or has issued a false invoice.
2. He affects the issuance of an invoice without supplying the goods or services as per the provisions of GST.
3. He uses the GSTIN of any other person instead of his own.
4. He submits false information during registration.
5. He gives wrong information while filing returns or files false returns.
6. He gives wrong information or false information during assessment proceedings.
7. He fails to submit GST with the Government that was deducted by him, within a period of 3 months from the date of such deduction.
8. If TDS is deducted in contravention of provisions of GST, he is still liable to pay the same within three months from the date of such deduction. If such falsely deducted TDS is not submitted within the prescribed time, then it is an offence.
9. He claims and obtains a refund of CGST or SGST by fraud.
10. He claims Input Tax Credit without the actual receipt of goods or services.
11. He understates his sales during the period to evade tax.
12. He transports or effects the movement of goods without proper documentation.
13. He supplies goods that will be confiscated by law.
14. He destroys or tampers with, the goods that have been confiscated.
15. He does not register himself even though he is liable to do so.
16. He does not deduct TDS wherever applicable or deducts lesser than the prescribed amount.
17. He does not collect TCS wherever applicable or collects lesser than the prescribed amount.
18. He does not distribute credit properly or distribute against the provisions of law being an Input Service Distributor.
19. He obstructs the officer in the performance of his duties.
20. He does not maintain proper books of accounts as required mandatorily by law
21. He intentionally destroys any evidence.

GST Penalties

A penalty is a punishment imposed by law for committing an offence or failing to do something that was the duty of a party to do. Both corporal (jail) and pecuniary (monetary) penalties are applicable under GST.

Offence	Penalty
Delay in filing GSTR	Late fee of Rs.200 per day, Rs.100 as SGST and CGST.
Not filing GSTR	Penalty 10% of tax due or Rs. 10,000
Committing a fraud	Penalty 100% of tax due or Rs. 10,000 (High value cases also have jail term)
Helping a person to commit fraud	Penalty up to Rs. 25,000
Penalty for opting for composition scheme even though he is not eligible	Penalty 100% of tax due or Rs. 10,000
Wrongfully charging GST rate— charging higher rate	Penalty 100% of tax due or Rs. 10,000
Penalty for not issuing invoice	Penalty 100% of tax due or Rs. 10,000
Not registering under GST	Penalty 100% of tax due or Rs. 10,000

GST Appeals

A person unhappy with any decision or order passed against him under GST can appeal against such a decision. The first appeal against an order goes to the First Appellate Authority. They can further appeal to the National Appellate Tribunal, then to the High Court, and finally to the Supreme Court.

A taxpayer may request for the advance ruling under GST. The taxpayer asks for clarification from GST authorities on GST treatment before starting the proposed activity. The tax authority gives an advance ruling to the applicant on the query.

Getting registered as a new business selling goods or services is essential. The registration can be done on an online GST portal like https://gstregistrations.org Not registering is illegal and can result in the payment of high fines and punishment as mentioned above. We have an excellent and experienced team in the financial department, who will resolve all your GST work like GST registration, GST filing, GST tax return filing with ease