Section 50: Interest on delayed payment of tax
Every person who is liable to pay tax in accordance with the provisions of this Act or the rules made there under, but fails to pay the tax or any part thereof to the Government within the period prescribed, shall for the period for which the tax or any part thereof remains unpaid, pay, on his own, interest at such rate, not exceeding eighteen per cent, as may be notified by the Government on the recommendations of the Council:
[Provided that the interest on tax payable in respect of supplies made during a tax period and declared in the return for the said period furnished after the due date in accordance with the provisions of section 39, except where such return is furnished after commencement of any proceedings under section 73 or section 74 in respect of the said period, shall be levied on that portion of the tax that is paid by debiting the electronic cash ledger.]
(2) The interest under sub-section (1) shall be calculated, in such manner as may be prescribed, from the day succeeding the day on which such tax was due to be paid.
(3) A taxable person who makes an undue or excess claim of input tax credit under sub-section (10) of section 42 or undue or excess reduction in output tax liability under sub-section (10) of section 43, shall pay interest on such undue or excess claim or on such undue or excess reduction, as the case may be, at such rate not exceeding twenty four per cent., as may be notified by the Government on the recommendations of the Council.
Section 42(10): Matching, reversal and reclaim of input tax credit
(10) The amount reduced from the output tax liability in contravention of the provisions of sub-section (7) shall be added to the output tax liability of the recipient in his return for the month in which such contravention takes place and such recipient shall be liable to pay interest on the amount so added at the rate specified in sub-section (3) of section 50.
Section 43(10): Matching, reversal and reclaim of reduction in output tax liability
The amount reduced from output tax liability in contravention of the provisions of sub-section (7) shall be added to the output tax liability of the supplier in his return for the month in which such contravention takes place and such supplier shall be liable to pay interest on the amount so added at the rate specified in sub-section (3) of section 50.
As per the recent judgment of Madras High Court in the case of M/S F1 Components Private Ltd V/S The State Tax Officer, Chennai [W.P No. 6631 of 2021 And WMP No. 7188 of 2021, Dated 09/07/2021.
The High Court referred to the decision of M/S Maansarover Motors Private Ltd Dated 29/09/2020 wherein the Court set aside the orders levying interest on ITC as applied on delayed payment in line with GST Council Recommendation of levying interest on Net Cash Liability only w.e.f July 1, 2017 and it was held that this proviso to Section 50 of the CGST Act is retrospective.
Analyzed the provisions of Section 42 of the CGST Act and noted that, the same is not applicable as the Petitioner has accepted the error in claim of ITC by the Respondent and has accordingly reversed ITC through Voluntary Payment of Tax in Form GST DRC – 03
Author View
As per Section 42(10) & Section 43(10) both talks about Matching Concept with Section 38 i.e GSTR 2 and Section 39 i.e GSTR 3 both the returns has been suspended by the government according to GSTR 2 we were about to accept/reject the invoices; instead of introducing GSTR 2 Government has introduced GSTR 2A which has no relevance till now as Section 16(2)(aa) has not been Notified till now which gives power to GSTR 2A and on the other side instead of introducing GSTR 3 government introduced GSTR 3B which after many litigations which were filed before many Authorities and High Courts which was now amended to be a return, parallelly Government also issued the Finance Act which was brought into force w.e.f September 01, 2020 with Retrospective Effect which stated that the Interest will be levied on Net Cash Liability Only which ultimately means that who have wrongly availed it but not Utilized it and you reversing it. Now with this Madras High Court Judgment of M/S F1 Components Private Ltd V/S The State Tax Officer it is proved that NO Interest will be Levied on Wrongful Availment and not Utilizing ITC which is a very Positive Judgment for the Taxpayers.
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