Amid rising instances of GST frauds and cases of fake invoices, these changes are expected to broaden the compliance mandate for more businesses, especially small and medium enterprises and also help boost the GST revenue collections.
In two significant measures to curb tax evasion and increase compliance under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, the government has decided to lower the threshold for businesses to generate e-invoice for business-to-business (B2B) transactions to Rs 5 crore from Rs 10 crore and has rolled out the automated return scrutiny module for GST returns in a backend application for central tax officers.
Amid rising instances of GST frauds and cases of fake invoices, these changes are expected to broaden the compliance mandate for more businesses, especially small and medium enterprises and also help boost the GST revenue collections.
Last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a review of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) had given directions to roll out an automated return scrutiny module for GST returns at the earliest. The module will enable the officers to scrutinise GST returns of centre-administered taxpayers selected on the basis of data analytics and risks identified by the system, a Finance Ministry statement said.
Discrepancies on account of risks associated with a return will be displayed to the tax officers and they will interact with the taxpayers through the GSTN common portal for communication of discrepancies noticed in returns and subsequent action in form of either issuance of an order of acceptance of reply or issuance of show cause notice or initiation of audit/investigation, it said.
The automated return scrutiny module has already commenced with the scrutiny of GST returns for FY 2019-20, with the requisite data already with the tax officers, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the government has also lowered the threshold for businesses to generate e-invoice for B2B transactions to Rs 5 crore from Rs 10 crore. The changes will come into effect from August 1, the ministry said In a notification dated May 10.
At present, businesses with turnover of Rs 10 crore and above are required to generate e-invoice for all B2B transactions.
Original Published by:
