A Bengaluru business that stops filing GST returns does not get a warning first. The late fee starts the day after the due date, at ₹50 for a return with entries and ₹20 for a nil one. Interest runs at 18 percent a year on the tax you have not paid. Your buyers lose the credit they were expecting, and the portal will not let you file the next period until the missed one is cleared. The correction is unglamorous. File every period, reconcile the credit before you file, and keep the acknowledgement somewhere you can find it.
What does a missed return actually cost a Bengaluru filer?
Take the money first. A regular return filed late attracts ₹50 for every day of delay, capped at ₹10,000 for that return. A nil return attracts ₹20 a day, capped at ₹5,000. Interest of 18 percent a year sits on top of that, and it is charged on the tax rather than on the late fee.
The second cost is the one that reaches other people. GSTR-1 carries your sales into your buyer's credit statement. Miss it and a customer in Whitefield or Peenya finds a hole in their own credit and starts asking questions during their reconciliation. Repeated default also puts the registration itself at risk, and a suspended GSTIN cannot lawfully carry tax on an invoice. For a Koramangala company halfway through a funding round, that becomes a diligence finding rather than a clerical one.
Who in Bengaluru has to file, and from which month?
The obligation attaches to the registration, not to the revenue. From the month your GSTIN goes active you file, and you keep filing through months with no sales at all. Whether you needed to register in the first place is a separate question. The registration threshold depends on whether you supply goods or services and on your category of state, and we confirm the current position before we file.
The profiles we see most often on this service in Bengaluru:
- A Koramangala SaaS founder raising a seed round, where clean filings and a matched credit ledger become diligence items long before they become tax items.
- A precision engineering and machine tools unit in Peenya, buying steel and tooling every month and living on the credit that reconciliation protects.
- An HSR Layout services firm that registered voluntarily to invoice one large customer and now owes returns whether or not it billed anything.
- A Bengaluru company holding a second office across the city, filing on one GSTIN while reporting two places of business.
Which officer or department ends up holding your file?
Two administrations run GST on the same law. The state statute is the Karnataka Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017, and the state administration is the Karnataka Commercial Taxes Department, which publishes at gst.karnataka.gov.in and also runs professional tax. The other side is administered by the CGST authorities.
Which of the two ends up with your file is not your choice. A Bengaluru GST application is assigned to either a Karnataka state officer or a central officer, and either can raise clarifications and verify the principal place of business. That matters more than it sounds. The address on your registration is the address an officer can walk into, which is a live point for the many Bengaluru companies whose registered office is a coworking desk.
A Karnataka GST registration number carries the state's own two digit code at the front, and we confirm the number the department issues you. The returns themselves are filed on gst.gov.in wherever the file happens to sit.
Which dates govern the Bengaluru filing year?
A monthly filer works to two dates, then to one more when the year closes. None of that changes because you are in Karnataka. What does change is the lower half of this table, which is state law and which national GST checklists leave out.
| Filing | Who it applies to | Due date |
|---|---|---|
| GSTR-1 | Monthly filers reporting outward supplies | 11th of the following month |
| GSTR-3B | Monthly filers, with the tax paid | 20th of the following month |
| GSTR-9 | Regular taxpayers above the notified turnover line | 31 December after the year ends |
| Form 5-A statement | Karnataka employers holding a registration certificate | Within 20 days of month end |
| Enrolment payment | Karnataka enrolment certificate holders | 30 April |
A quarterly option exists for smaller filers, and the payment dates inside a quarter differ by state group, so we confirm your own dates before your first cycle with us. The return types, the late fee ladder and the annual return are set out in our complete GST return filing guide for India.
What does the fee cover, and what sits outside it?
₹299 a return is the starting point, and for most Bengaluru filers on a monthly cycle that is what a period costs. Inside it:
- Collection of your sales and purchase data for the period, in whatever form you already keep it.
- Reconciliation of the purchase register against the portal credit statement, with mismatches listed by supplier and invoice.
- Preparation of GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, sent to you as a summary before anything at all is submitted.
- Filing on gst.gov.in once you approve, with the acknowledgement back in your hands the same day.
- A running filing history, so an assessment or an investor request does not become a search through old email.
What sits outside is worth saying plainly. The annual return, a backlog of missed periods, a departmental notice and a registration amendment are each quoted separately, because none of them is monthly work. Your CA confirms the exact monthly figure against your invoice volume before you commit.
Where does Karnataka professional tax sit alongside your returns?
This is the link that catches Bengaluru businesses out, and no national GST guide will flag it. Under Karnataka Act 35 of 1976, being registered or liable to be registered under the Karnataka Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 is itself an entry in the schedule. The GSTIN alone creates the liability, at ₹2,500 a year, on an enrolment certificate.
Karnataka says EC and RC, and they are two different certificates. The enrolment certificate covers your own liability. The registration certificate covers what you deduct from staff, so an employer with payroll needs both. Where one business is caught by more than one entry in the schedule, the tax is payable under any one of them, so ₹2,500 is paid once rather than several times over.
Then the dates. The statutory date for the enrolment payment is 30 April, and an extension granted for one year is no authority for the next. The employer statement in Form 5-A goes in within twenty days of the month end, with proof of payment, on e-Prerana at ptax.karnataka.gov.in. Deduction applies to a monthly salary of ₹25,000 and above, at ₹200 a month for eleven months and ₹300 for February. There is no fee to enrol or to register, and the certificate you download carries no seal or signature by design.
One quirk is worth real money. An additional place of business is deemed a separate person for this tax, so a Koramangala office and a second office in Whitefield each carry ₹2,500, while premises used only as a godown for storing goods do not.
Who watches your GST return calendar every month?
We file for Bengaluru businesses every month, which makes the calendar ours to watch rather than yours. A qualified CA prepares and reviews every return before it goes near the portal, and you see the summary first. Reconciliation happens every cycle rather than once a year, which is when credit is still recoverable rather than merely regrettable.
The Karnataka layer is the part we would not expect a founder to track. Your GST dates and your professional tax dates sit on one calendar here, so the 30 April enrolment payment and the monthly Form 5-A statement never surface as a surprise inside an assessment. The whole engagement runs online, with a CA and CS team you can reach. Start with a free consultation and we will show you what your first month looks like before you pay for any of it.