In 37th Meeting of the GST Council held in Goa on 20 September, 2019, recommended that Relaxation in filing of annual returns for MSMEs for FY 2017-18 and FY 2018-19 as under:
1. Waiver of the requirement of filing FORM GSTR-9A for Composition Taxpayers for the said tax periods, And
2. Filing of FORM GSTR-9 for those taxpayers who (are required to file the said return but) have aggregate turnover up to Rs. 2 crores made optional for the said tax periods.
On the recommendations of the Council, CBIC issued Notification No. 49/2019 – Central Tax dated 09/Oct/2019 in which requirement of Filing of Return GSTR-9 and GSTR-9A is optional for the Taxpayer upto the turnover of Rs. 2 Crore
But Words used in notification are “follow the special procedure such that the taxpayer whose Turnover upto Rs. 2 Crore, shall have the option to furnish the annual return under section 44(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 read rule 80(1) of the Central Goods and Services Tax Rules, 2017.”
Important Line of the Notification
“Provided that the said return shall be deemed to be furnished on the due date if it has not been furnished before the due date”.
Means If the Taxpayer is not filed his GSTR-9/GSTR-9A on the due date then it will be deemed to be filed. i.e the auto populated data from 3B/GSTR-1/GSTR-2A/GSTR-4/GSTR-4A in the GSTR-9/GSTR-9A will be the Annual return of the Taxpayer.
Department may access the case of taxpayer on the basis of Deemed return and proceed with the figures of deemed return.
It is advisable to the taxpayer, to filed his GSTR-9/9A if there was any adjustment in the return of next year relating to Previous year.
And checked once even if there was no Adjustment.