Goods and Services Tax is an indirect tax used in India on the supply of goods and services. The Goods and Service Tax Act was passed in the Parliament on 29th March 2017 and came into effect on 1st July 2017. It is a comprehensive, multistage, destination-based tax: comprehensive because it has subsumed almost all the indirect taxes except a few state taxes.
Goods and Service Tax (GST) is paid by the consumers for the products or services. But the GST will be remitted to the government by the businesses who are providing you with those products and services.
- GST Circulars in brief:
1. Significant Changes from 1st April 2021
A. E-invoicing will be mandatory
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) notified that e-invoicing will be mandatory for business to business (B2B) transactions for taxpayers having turnover of over Rs 50 crore from April 1, 2021.
E-invoicing replaces the physical invoice and will soon replace the existing e-way bill system, and taxpayers will not have to generate separate e-way bills. The government expects e-invoicing to have also other major advantages, such as improving the payment cycle for industry and giving boost to invoice-based lending to MSMEs.
B. HSN Code (Harmonized System of Nomenclature)
- Taxpayers to mandatorily declare HSN codes in GST Tax Invoices from 1st April, 2021.
- The Taxpayers whose aggregate Turnover is up to Rs. 5 crores in the preceding Financial Year HSN code of 4 digits is mandatory for all the B2B tax invoices and optional for B2C tax invoices on the supplies of Goods and Services.
- The Taxpayers whose aggregate Turnover is more than Rs. 5 crores in the preceding Financial Year HSN code of 6 digits is mandatory for both B2B and B2C tax invoices on the supplies of Goods and Services.
C. Important system changes need to be integrated in your e waybills, Delivery challans, Tax invoices, GSTR 1 reporting, Shipping bills, GST refund applications and further note that options available for non reporting under Table 17 and Table 18 would be done away from FY 2021-22 positively.
2. Upcoming functionalities to be deployed on GST Portal for the Taxpayers in the month of July, 2021:
| Sl. No | Form/ Functionality | Functionality released/ to be released for Taxpayers |
| 1 | Registration
Timelines for filing of Application for Revocation of Cancellation of Registration in Form GST REG-21 |
|
| 2 | Returns
Information regarding late fee payable provided in Form GSTR-10 |
|
| 3 | Returns Auto-population of data in Form GSTR-11 on basis of Forms GSTR-1 / 5 filed by their suppliers |
|
3. Govt. relaxes GST refund claim norms:
The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has eased the norms for claiming Goods and Services Tax (GST) refunds making it easier for businesses to rectify their applications. The period between filing a refund claim and an officer issuing a deficiency notice will not be counted in the total time limit available for filing a refund request.
4. Flavoured milk taxable at 12% under GST: AAR rules in Amul dairy case
Flavoured milk is basically ‘beverage containing milk’ and will attract 12 per cent GST, the Gujarat Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) has said.
Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd, which markets dairy product under Amul brand, had approached the AAR on the taxability under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) of flavored milk which the company sells under trade name Amul Kool /Amul Kool Cafe.
The applicant had submitted before the AAR that the process of the flavoured milk is standardization of fresh milk according to the fat contents and then heating at certain temperature followed by filtration, pasteurisation and homogenisation and then mixing of sugar and various flavours and finally bottling.
5. 6-digit HSN code mandatory in invoices for biz with over Rs 5 crore turnover
Businesses with turnover of more than Rs 5 crore will have to furnish six-digit HSN or tariff code on the invoices issued for supplies of taxable goods and services from April 1, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday. Those with turnover of up to Rs 5 crore in the preceding financial year would be required to mandatorily furnish four-digit HSN code on B2B invoices. Earlier, the requirement was four-digits and two-digits respectively. “With effect from the 1st April, 2021, GST taxpayers will have to furnish HSN (Harmonised System of Nomenclature Code), or Service Accounting Code (SAC) in their invoices, as per the revised requirement, the Ministry said in a statement.
6. GSTN enables functionality to lodge complaint of PAN misuse for GST registration
“To check the misuses of PAN in GST Registration, a functionality has been provided at GST Portal to register the complaint. GSTN, which handles the technology backbone of the Goods and Services Tax, has enabled an utility to lodge complaints relating to misuse of PAN for obtaining GST registration, a move aimed at curbing creation of bogus entities for the purpose of tax evasion. Any person whose PAN has been misused can lodge such a complaint. Following that, it would be sent to the concerned tax officer under whose jurisdiction the registration has taken place fraudulently for further action. https://taxguru.in/goods-and-service-tax/functionality-register-complaint-misuse-pan-gst-registration.html
7. GST Amnesty Scheme – Unable to file GST returns and take benefit, businesses urge government to do THIS
An important day for the Indian indirect taxation system – the Goods and Services Tax (GST) – which will be completing its four years at the helm, on Thursday. The government has been making changes in the law to remove teething problems from time-to-time. The government has also recently launched the GST Amnesty scheme. This scheme is valid for the period between July 2017 and April 2021.
However, the businesses are unable to take advantage of this scheme as this scheme will apply if the GST returns are filed till 31 August 2021.
Monthly Updates with official links
- Monthly Updates / Circulars / Notification / News – April 2021
- Monthly Updates / Circulars / Notification / News – May, 2021
- Monthly Updates / Circulars / Notification / News – June, 2021
- GST Council Meetings:
| Sl. | GST Meetings | Links |
| 1 | 43rd GST Council meeting Outcome: 8 Key highlights dated 28th May, 2021 | Click Here |
| 2 | 44th GST Council Meeting Highlights dt.12.06.2021 | Click Here |
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