GSTN: e-Invoicing Begins from 01 October 2020 Without Any Changes

The Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mr Prakash Kumar said that the GSTN would launch GST e-invoicing as per schedule on 01 October 2020. He stated that there would be no postponement for implementing e-invoicing in a GST webinar conducted by a newspaper.

While most of the companies are ready for this change, few companies are not. Few companies even raised their concerns that businesses may be adversely affected during festivals seasons due to implementation of e-invoicing.

All of these concerns of companies raised a hope regarding postponement or making applicability voluntarily of the new regime. However, the GSTN CEO clears the ambiguity on implementation of e-invoicing by stating that it is going to be implemented from 01 October 2020. Hence, there will be no postponement or no changes to the applicability of e-invoicing.

The electronic invoicing was to be mandatorily implemented from 01 April 2020, but it has been pushed to 01 October 2020 for taxpayers with aggregate turnover over Rs 500 crore. The aggregate turnover means the turnover of all GSTINs under a single PAN, across India.

‘E-invoicing’ or ‘electronic invoicing’ is a system in which B2B invoices are authenticated electronically by GSTN for further use on the common GST portal. Under the electronic invoicing system, an identification number will be issued against every invoice by the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) to be managed by the GSTN.

The CEO of GSTN also said that the GSTN would auto-populate the GSTR-3B returns of taxpayers from November 2020. GSTN aims to make this auto-population available from November 2020 month returns which are to be filed in December 2020. First, the auto-population will be made available for monthly GST return filers and later on it will be made available for remaining types of GST return filers.

Also Read: IRP Clarifies Confusion on QR Code Under e-Invoicing

Every month, over one crore taxpayers are eligible to file GSTR-3B returns. GSTR-3B is a summary return which shows how much tax has to be paid after deducting the Input Tax Credit (ITC). A taxpayer can get the eligible ITC figure from GSTR-2B, which is generated based on the GSTR-1 filed by the supplier.

GSTR-1 is a statement of outward supplies made during a period, and it shows the total GST liability on the sales. However, few taxpayers allegedly over-report ITC to lower the tax payment. To curb those alleged practices, GSTN recently started to generate GSTR-3B based on the GSTR-1 filed by the suppliers. The taxpayers can check the auto-populated figures and inform the authorities if there is an error in the process or computation of GST or the ITC.

For any clarifications/feedback on the topic, please contact the writer at dvsr.anjaneyulu@cleartax.in