Chartered accountants across India have raised concerns over technical glitches on the GST Portal on Monday, urging authorities to extend the deadline for filing Form GSTR-3B for the March 2026 tax period. The due date for monthly filers falls on April 20, 2026, but professionals say persistent issues have made compliance difficult on the final day.
Form GSTR-3B is a simplified summary return that taxpayers use to declare their GST liabilities and complete tax payments for a given period. Filing this return is mandatory for all regular taxpayers, making timely access to the portal critical.
Several practitioners took to social media platform X to highlight the disruptions. CA Avinash Khandelwal noted that the portal had not been functioning properly since morning, with users unable to file returns or generate challans. He also pointed out issues with OTP delivery, which further delayed the filing process.
Echoing similar concerns, CA Vishnu Acharya described the monthly GST compliance cycle as a “just-in-time” process, where key data becomes available only by mid-month. According to him, tax professionals spend the following days reconciling invoices, verifying input tax credit eligibility, and computing liabilities before making payments close to the deadline. He added that such last-day technical disruptions significantly impact their ability to meet statutory timelines, especially for clients operating across multiple states, requiring repeated logins.
Online tax platform aapnaCA.com requested the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) to extend the due date, arguing that taxpayers should not be penalised for system inefficiencies. Similarly, the Tamil Nadu GST Professionals Association also sought relief, citing widespread difficulties faced by users.
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As per existing rules, the due date for GSTR-3B filing is the 20th of the following month for monthly filers, while quarterly filers must submit returns by the 22nd or 24th, depending on their state. However, the government retains the authority to extend deadlines via notification in cases of genuine hardship.
With the deadline coinciding with reported system outages, tax professionals are now awaiting a response from authorities, hoping for a deadline extension to ensure compliance without penalties.
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