Corporates with Over 100 Crore Turnover Have to Implement GST E-Invoicing for B2B Transactions

The GST e-invoicing system will be extended to businesses with over Rs 100 crore turnover from January 1, 2021, for B2B business transaction, a top government official said on Friday.

Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey said the e-invoicing system can eventually dispense with the present system of filing GST returns for smaller businesses and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law, e-invoice for B2B transactions have been made mandatory for companies with turnover of over Rs 500 crore from October 1.

Pandey, who is also the Revenue Secretary, said by January 1, 2021, it will be available to taxpayers having turnover of more than Rs 100 crore a year, and for all taxpayers for B2B transactions from April 1, 2021.

The 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 e-invoicing system can also eventually dispense with the present system of filing GST returns for smaller businesses and MSMEs because e-invoice will pre-populate their returns and they have to simply pay the taxes. The returns will be automatically generated for all supplies for which e-invoice have been issued," Pandey said after reviewing the status of e-invoicing system implementation.

Within seven days of the rollout of e-invoicing system Invoice Reference Number (IRN) generation has grown by 163 per cent and have touched the count of 13.69 lakh IRNs on October 7.

Under e-invoicing, taxpayers have to generate invoices on their internal systems (ERP/accounting/billing software) and then report it online to the 'Invoice Registration Portal (IRP). The IRP will validate the information provided in the invoices and return the digitally signed e-Invoices with a unique 'Invoice Reference Number (IRN)' along with a QR Code to the taxpayer.

According to GSTN and NIC, as per the statistics available, within seven days of the introduction of e-invoicing more than 69.5 lakh IRNs were generated by some 71,000 users.

On the very first day of the e-invoicing system, more than 8.40 lakh IRNs were generated by 8,453 users, while on October 7, about 13.69 lakh IRNs were generated by 14,100 users.