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New Delhi, Jun 13: In a bid to provide relief to small businesses amid the coronavirus pandemic, the GST Council on Friday decided to halve the interest rate on late filing of GSTR-3B returns for the period of February, March and April 2020.

The interest rate on late return filing will be 9% from the usual 18% till September 30, 2020. The benefit will be available for small taxpayers with aggregate turnover of up to Rs 5 crore.

For the three months, small taxpayers will not be charged any interest till the notified dates for relief and thereafter 9% interest will be charged till September 30, a Finance Ministry statement said.

"For small taxpayers (aggregate turnover upto Rs 5 crore), for the supplies effected in the month of February, March and April 2020, the rate of interest for late furnishing of return for the said months beyond specified dates (staggered upto 6th July 2020) is reduced from 18 per cent per annum to 9 per cent per annum till 30.09.2020," said the statement.

The Council has also extended relief to small taxpayers for subsequent period of 2020 through waiver of late fees and interest if the returns in Form GSTR-3B for the supplies effected in the months of May, June and July are furnished by September 2020.

It has also decided to reduce the late fee on the filing of GSTR-3B returns for the period between July 2017 and January 2020. The late fee has been capped at Rs 500, but interest will be charged at the existing rate on the due tax liability.

Speaking to the media in New Delhi after a GST Council meet through videoconference, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that those entities with no tax liability will not have to submit the late fee for the period.

For entities with tax liability but which have not filed returns or have filed returns late, the late fee has been capped at Rs 500 without interest. Interest will, however, be payable on the tax component at the applicable rate for delays.

To facilitate taxpayers who could not get their cancelled GST registrations restored in time, the Council has provided an opportunity for filing of application for revocation of cancellation of registration up to September 30, 2020, in all cases where registrations have been cancelled till June 12, 2020.

New Delhi, Jun 3: Over 1 lakh scanned copies of Indians' national IDs, including Aadhaar, PAN card and passport, have been put on dark web for sale, cyber intelligence firm Cyble said on Wednesday.

The leaked data seems to have originated from a third party and not from the government system, according to a report by Cyble.

"We came across a non-reputed actor who is currently selling over 1 lakh Indian National IDs on the dark net. With such a low reputation, ideally, we would have skipped this; however, the samples shared by the actor intrigued our interest -- and also the volume. The actor is alleged to have access to over 1 lakh IDs from different places in India," Cyble said.

The personal data leaked by cyber criminals leads to various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage. Many criminals use the personal details in the IDs to win trust of the people over a phone call for fraudulent activities.

Cyber criminals leak personal data of 2.9 cr job-seeking Indians on dark web for free

The Cyble researchers acquired around 1,000 IDs from the seller and confirmed that the scanned IDs belong to Indians.

"Preliminary analysis suggests that the data originated from a third party, and no indication or artefact is indicating that it came from a government system. At this point, Cyble researchers are still investigating this further -- we are hoping to share an update soon," Cyble said.

The scanned ID documents indicate that the data may have been leaked from a company's data base in the segment where they have to comply with 'Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms.

"Cyble researchers have also learned about a surge in KYC and banking scams -- leaks such as this are often used by scammers to target individuals, especially elderlies," Cyble said.

The cyber intelligence firm has recommended people to refrain from sharing personal information especially financial information over phone, e-mail or SMS.

"Regularly monitor your financial transaction, if you notice any suspicious transaction, contact your bank immediately," the company said.

In May, Cyble showed two instances where personal data of 7.65 crore Indians have been put on sale in the dark web. In one instance, the seller claimed to have sourced data of 4.75 crore Indians from online directory Truecaller and in other, the seller claimed to have sourced from job websites.

Truecaller, however, had denied the claim of breach in its database.