How GST is going to affect E-Commerce businesses

1. Definitions

• Sec 2(44):‘electronic commerce’ means supply of goods and / or services including digital products over digital or electronic network
• Sec 2(45):‘electronic commerce operator’ means any person who owns, operates or manages digital or electronic facility or platform for electronic commerce

2. Registration Yes. Section 24 provides that the threshold exemption is not available to e-commerce operators and they would be liable to be registered irrespective of the value of supply made by them.

3. Threshold exemption? No. Section 24 provides that the threshold exemption is not available to such suppliers and they would be liable to be registered irrespective of the value of supply made by them.

4. Composition Scheme No Benefit under Composition Scheme

5. Collection of Tax at Source:

• Every electronic commerce operator shall, collect the tax at the time of credit of any amount to the account of the supplier of goods and / or services or at the time of payment of any amount towards the supply of goods and / or services made through it.
• Tax will be collected @ 1% of net value of taxable supplies – aggregate value of taxable supplies of goods or services, other than services notified under sub-section (4) of section 8, made during any month by all registered taxable persons through the operator reduced by the aggregate value of taxable supplies returned to the suppliers during the said month
• The amount collected shall be paid to the credit of the appropriate Government by the operator within ten days after the end of the month in which such collection is made.
• Supplier shall claim credit in his electronic cash ledger

6. Return:

• Return towards outward supplies of goods and / or services during a calendar month in specified format shall be submitted by the ecommerce operator within ten days after the end of the month
• Details of supplies and amount collected as per the return filed by E-commerce operator will be matched with the outward supplies mentioned by the supplier in his return and if any discrepancy is found intimation of the same will be given to both E-commerce operator and supplier.
• Required corrections to be made in return pertaining to the same month in which such discrepancy is communicated, otherwise the amount of such tax would be added to output tax liability of supplier

7. Annual Return

Annual Return to be submitted by 31st Dec of subsequent year.

8. Explanations

E-commerce

Electronic Commerce to mean the supply or receipt of goods and/ or services, or transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet, by using any of the applications that rely on the internet, like but not limited to e-mail, instant messaging, shopping carts, web services, universal description Discovery and integration (UDDI), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) whether or not the payment is conducted online and whether or not the ultimate delivery of the goods and/or services is done by the operator.

E-commerce operator

an Electronic Commerce Operator (Operator) as every person who, directly or indirectly, owns, operates or manages an electronic platform which is engaged in facilitating the supply of any goods and/or services. Also a person providing any information or any other services incidental to or in connection with such supply of goods and services through electronic platform would be considered as an Operator. A person supplying goods/services on his own account, however, would not be considered as an Operator.