The Finance Ministry has extended the deadline to file GST returns to August 25, 2017. This is because there were technical glitches reported on the GSTN portal. The portal was unable to deal with the excessive load on it and people experienced difficulties filing their tax returns. Earlier, August 20, 2017 was the scheduled last date for publishing the first set of tax returns under GST.

Governments of Jammu & Kashmir and other flood-hit states had also asked for an extension.

GST Council took to Twitter, saying, "The GST Implementation Committee, consisting of State and Central Government Officers, has taken a decision to extend the last date of payment for the month of July 2017 to 25th August, 2017. "

The Finance Ministry had said: "The GST Implementation Committee, consisting of state and central government officers, has taken a decision to extend the last date for payment of GST for July 2017 to August 25, 2017."

The ministry also had this recommendation: “In order not to face any last moment technological difficulty in submission of returns, all taxpayers are requested to kindly file their return well before 25th / 28th of August 2017 and not wait for the last date."

For taxpayers looking to claim credit for taxes paid by filling form TRANS 1, the last date will be August 28, 2017.