Registration Process under Model GST Law

Palak Goel

Registration of a business with the tax authorities implies obtaining a unique identification code from the concerned tax authorities so that all the information relating to the business can be agglomerated and correlated.

Assumptions

1. There will be a threshold of Gross Annual Turnover including exports and exempted supplies below which any person engaged in supply of Goods or Services or both will not be required to take registration under GST.
2. Effective date of registration would be the date of application in all cases i.e. whether the application has been filed within prescribed time limit of 30 days or otherwise.
3. If a person makes inter-state supply or is liable to pay tax under reverse charge basis, he will be compulsorily required to take registration.
4. However, an individual importing services for personal consumption will not be liable to pay GST under reverse charge or register under GST if the GST law so provides.
5. Separate registration is required to be taken even if taxable person is supplying goods & services as a single entity.
6. A supplier is not registered in a particular state but desires to conduct the business for a limited period in that state, he will have to obtain registration for a limited period. Such suppliers are called casual dealers. They are required to self-assess their liability and deposit it as advance tax which would be refunded to them after they have discharged their final liability.
7. A non- resident supplier is one who is not resident in the state in which it has applied for registration but is registered in other states. Similar provisions as in case of casual dealer will be applicable except for the requirement of depositing advance tax.

Read: what documents required for GST Migration?

Structure of Registration number

Each taxpayer will be allotted a 15 digit PAN based Goods and service tax identification number (GSTIN).

• State code as stipulated in Indian census 2011 will be adopted.
• 13^th digit would be alpha numeric (1-9 and then A-Z). It would be assigned depending upon the number of registrations which an entity holds in one state.
• 14^th digit would be kept blank for future use.

Switching b/w compounding scheme and Normal scheme

• Case 1

• Change can be made from the beginning of the financial year.
• Application is to be filed on or before 31^st march of previous year.

Case 2

• Change can be made during the year, on the condition that dealer does not opt for change to composition scheme in the same year

Migration of Existing registrants

1. Migration of existing database of the registrant to GST common portal must be started in advance to enable smooth transition to GST regime.
2. Data will be collected from the registrant as number of fields in GST registration Form would be 120 which is greater in number in comparision to the existing fields.
3. Available data with the states and CBEC does not comply with Metadata and Data standards of Government of India.
4. Scanned copies of supporting documents for mandatory fields are missing in the existing database.

Instead of migrating incorrect and incomplete data, fresh data will have to be collected from the existing tax payers.

Six mandatory data fields in the GST Registration field are:

Taxpayer registered under State VAT/Excise

• In case PAN has been validated, GSTIN and password generated by NSDL will be sent to respective State tax authorities which will be further communicated to taxpayers with the instruction to fill the remaining data.
• Data collected by NSDL/GSTN will be sent to State tax authorities so that they can undertake verification exercise.
• In case email or mobile number is not available then dealers may be advised through newspaper advertisement to use the following information for user authentication:
  • VAT-TIN
  • PAN
  • Date of Birth/Date of Incorporation in DDMMYYYY format

Tax payer registered under Service tax

• Service tax department may advise taxpayers to intimate the state where they would like to get themselves registered.

• It will be checked whether GSTIN is generated for the combination of PAN and State of the tax payer. If not, then same will be generated by the portal.

• GSTIN and password as generated will be communicated to service tax department which will further provide it to the taxpayer with the instruction to fill the remaining data.

We hope that our much awaited GST comes into floor with effect from 1^st April’2016 which will bring a paradigm shift in Indirect tax structure of our country leading to the advent of a new dawn for Trade and Industry.

(Author can be reached at palak.goel13@gmail.com)