Biz With Turnover Above Rs 500 Cr To Raise E-invoice For B2B Transactions

Businesses with turnover of Rs 500 crore and above will generate all B2B invoices on a centralised government portal starting October 1.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has notified the revised format for e-invoice under GST by replacing existing form and also increased the turnover threshold for businesses who have to generate e-invoice for B2B transactions.

With this, the e-invoice under Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be applicable for GST-registered businesses having turnover above Rs 500 crore with effect from October 1, 2020.

Also, SEZ units have been excluded from e-invoicing.

The e-invoice was aimed at curbing GST evasion through issue of fake invoices. Besides, it would make the returns filing process simpler for businesses as invoice data would already be captured by a centralised portal.

In November last year, the government had said that from April 1 electronic invoice (e-invoice) would be mandatory for businesses with turnover of Rs 100 crore. Later in March 2020, the GST Council extended the implementation date to October 1.

The Council also exempted insurance, banking, financial institutions, NBFCs and passenger transport service from issuing e-invoice.

EY Tax Partner Abhishek Jain said: "With only 60 days to this compliance, businesses would need to quickly evaluate the ERP changes needed and plan implementation well to ensure compliance from October 1".

AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said new formats for an e-invoice has been prescribed eyeing the implementation from October 1, 2020.

"Big corporates with turnover of over Rs 500 crores now have only 2 months to implement E-invoice digital module across various technology platforms, which would change the rules of game in Business to Business (B2B) transactions," he said.

GSTN will now have access to more real-time data around business transactions giving impetus to high level data analytics, Mohan added.