Last updated: November 10th, 2022 4:03 PM

Filing of NIL Form GSTR-1 return via SMS

From 8^th June 2020, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs has successfully implemented the facility of filing of NIL statement of Form GSTR-3B via SMS. Now, the Government has decided to further facilitate the filing of the NIL statement of Form GSTR-1 via SMS. Vide the press release dated 27^th June 2020, the Government declared that the said facility would be available from the first week of July 2020. Currently, in order to file the NIL statement of Form GSTR-1, the taxpayer needs to go through the long process of logging into the GST portal account first and then submitting the requisite return. The same is relatively quite time-consuming. The facility of filing the NIL Form GSTR-1 return via SMS would certainly ease up GST compliance. It is estimated that the introduction of such an SMS facility would benefit around 12 lakhs registered taxpayers under GST. The procedure for filing the NIL statement of Form GSTR-1 through SMS is covered in the present article.

Steps for filing NIL GSTR-1 via SMS

The taxpayer willing to file the NIL statement of Form GSTR-1 via SMS is required to follow the below steps-

STEP 1	Send an SMS to 14409 from the registered mobile number in the following format- NIL<Space>R1<Space>15-digit GSTIN Number<Space>tax period in MMYYYY format. Type of return Example of SMS format Form GSTR-1 (Monthly) SMS format for filing NIL return for the month of May 2020 NIL R1 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 052020 Form GSTR-1 (Quarterly) SMS format for filing NIL return for the quarter April 2020 to June 2020 NIL R1 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 062020
STEP 2	After successfully submitting SMS to 14409, as described above, the taxpayer will receive a six-digit validation code.
STEP 3	Send an SMS to 14409 from the registered mobile number in the following format- CNF<Space>R1<Space>six-digit validation code. On successful submission of validation code, the return filing process is complete, and the taxpayer will receive an acknowledgment number.