GST Network (GSTN) has tweaked some of the features on its portal over the past month to make the system more robust and allow glitch-free tax payment facility to almost 35 lakh assessees, CEO Prakash Kumar said on Sunday.

Of the total 87.33 lakh registered businesses on the GSTN, which manages the IT infrastructure of the new tax regime, 68 lakh were eligible to pay taxes in August.

Of the total registered taxpayers, 24.56 lakh are new registrations, while 62.77 lakh have migrated from the earlier excise, service tax and VAT regime. Mr. Kumar said the GSTN portal had handled a humongous load of 1.3 lakh tax return filings and payments per hour on September 20 — the last day of filing of August tax returns.

“Nearly 35 lakh people had filed returns till Saturday. We have done some tweaking in our portal and it is evident from the load GSTN handled at the time of August return filing,” he told PTI. Mr. Kumar said a significant number of returns were filed even after the due date of September 20 for the month of August. Till September 20, over 30 lakh returns were filed, and the tally went up to almost 35 lakh till September 23.

“A lot of businesses file returns even after the end of due date as the [GST] Council has done away with late payment fee. This delayed filing of returns used to happen at the time of VAT payment as well in States,” Mr. Kumar said. The Ministerial panel under Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi to look into glitches in GST Network will meet on October 4 to assess improvement in functioning of the portal.

The group of ministers will meet just two days before the full GST Council meeting on October 6 and would update the Council on its findings.

GST Network (GSTN) had faced glitches during the GSTR-3B filing for July, which had forced the government to extend the due date for filing of returns.

Tax collection

As many as 49.68 lakh returns in GSTR-3B were filed for July. This compares with 59.6 lakh businesses who are required to file returns. Taxes of more than Rs. 95,000 crore were collected in the maiden month of roll-out.

The GST Council had constituted the group of ministers to sort out the issues faced by businesses while filing returns and paying taxes on GSTN portal.