The Kerala High Court has held that the Input Tax Credit (GST ITC) cannot be denied if returns meet the deadline under Section 16(5) of the CGST Act, 2017.
The bench of Justice Ziyad Rahman A.A. has directed tax authorities to reconsider the denial of Input Tax Credit (ITC) to the assessee, a Thrissur-based manufacturing firm, holding that the company may be entitled to the benefit under the amended provisions of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act.
The petition was filed by assessee against an assessment order that had rejected its claim for ITC for the period between November 2018 and March 2019. The assessment order had concluded that the company was ineligible because it had not filed its GST returns within the deadline prescribed under Section 16(4) of the CGST Act.
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The petitioner/assessee is a registered GST taxpayer based in Porkulam, Thrissur district, challenged the assessment order issued by the State GST authorities. The company argued that while its returns were indeed filed after the original statutory deadline, they were submitted well before the extended deadline introduced through Section 16(5) of the CGST Act following legislative amendments.
The disputed returns were filed on the following dates: November 2018 return – October 29, 2019; December 2018 return – November 18, 2019; January 2019 return – November 25, 2019; February 2019 return – December 27, 2019; and March 2019 return – January 4, 2020.
These filings, the petitioner argued, fell comfortably within the cut-off date of November 30, 2021, prescribed under Section 16(5), making the company eligible to claim the corresponding input tax credit.
After reviewing the assessment order and the statutory provisions, the High Court observed that the returns in question had indeed been filed before the extended deadline contemplated under Section 16(5).
The Court noted that the assessment order itself acknowledged the dates on which the returns were filed. Since all the returns had been submitted well before November 30, 2021, the Court found that the tax authorities had failed to properly apply the amended legal provision while rejecting the ITC claim.
The High Court partially quashed the assessment order insofar as it denied the input tax credit for the disputed months. Instead of directly granting the credit, the Court directed the State Tax Officer to reconsider the matter and extend the benefit of input tax credit if the petitioner satisfies all other statutory requirements.
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