Returns, Payment, and What Happens If You Do Not

Returns

Section 6(1):

Every employer registered under this Act shall furnish to the prescribed authority a return in such form, for such period and by such dates as may be prescribed showing therein the salaries and wages paid by him and the amount of tax deducted by him in respect thereof

Only a registered employer files a return. An enrolled person files none: his certificate tells him what to pay and by when, and section 5(4) makes it a notice of demand.

The period is prescribed by the Rules and depends on the size of the previous year's liability, so a small employer files annually and a larger one monthly. The return is filed on the mahagst portal and the payment accompanies it.

Section 6 also carries the proviso for a company registered under section 5(3A), which registers at incorporation.

Assessment

Section 7, assessment and collection of tax, provides for the assessment of a registered employer where the return is not filed, or is filed and the authority is not satisfied with it, after giving the employer a reasonable opportunity of being heard.

Section 7A applies section 22 of the Maharashtra Value Added Tax Act 2002 and certain provisions of the rules made under it to this Act, which is how the Department reuses one machinery for several taxes.

An enrolled person is not assessed. That is the practical difference between the two certificates and it is worth stating in an answer.

Payment

Section 8(1): the tax payable under the Act shall be paid in the prescribed manner.

Section 8(2):

The amount of tax due from an enrolled person, as specified in his enrolment certificate, shall be paid for each year on or before the 31st March of the said year

31 March, each year, for an enrolled person. The proviso deals with the case where the rate is revised: the revised tax is paid on or before the 31st March of the year in which the revision falls.

A registered employer pays with his return, at the intervals the Rules prescribe.

Failure to pay

Section 9, consequences of failure to deduct or to pay tax:

(1) If any employer (not being an officer of Government) fails to pay the tax as required by or under this Act, he shall without prejudice to any other consequence and liabilities which he may incur, be deemed to be an assessee in default in respect of the tax.

"Deemed to be an assessee in default" is the phrase that opens the recovery machinery.

Section 9(2) then makes the employer liable to pay simple interest on the amount of the tax, in addition to the tax.

Notice what section 9 does not depend on. The employer is liable whether or not he deducted the tax from the employee. An employer who forgot to deduct pays out of his own pocket, and section 4 is the reason.