The Department of Commercial Taxes has been taking extensive steps to ease the process of filing Goods and Service Tax returns, said its Joint Commissioner, Commercial Taxes, S. M. Saraswathi here on Wednesday

The Centre recently extended the date for filing GSTR-2 till November 30. This is required to claim income tax credit under the GST regime.

The earlier date was October 31. The last date for filing GSTR-3 for July, 2017 was extended to December 11, from November 10.

In a bid to engage with traders in Madurai, the Joint Commissioner and her team presented a skit.

They performed a live demonstration and encouraged questions. She told them that special efforts were taken by the GST Council to reduce tax rates.

The conditions for registration had been relaxed and free registration can be done within three days.

There is free flow of trade, she said.

“Dealers of Madurai division must file GST 1, 2 and 3 only on quarterly basis. The awareness campaign is meant for those who are filing returns from October,” she said.

According to a data published by the Commercial Taxes department, only 40% of registered dealers have filed returns for tax value of Rs. 98.91 crore in July and Rs. 111.86 crore in August under the GST regime.

However, this amount is equal to the returns filed by all of dealers under the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime.

“For the common man, the rate of tax has been reduced in several areas. For instance, the tax for A/C restaurants is now on par with non-A/c restaurants. Now both are 12 %, against 18% for A/C restaurants earlier,” she said.