Now, pay at least 1% GST liability in cash

These changes indicate that government is grappling with lower tax collections and high tax evasions, burden of which will again be on honest taxpayers

New Delhi: Businesses with monthly turnover of over Rs 50 lakh will have to mandatorily pay at least 1 per cent of their GST liability in cash, the Finance Ministry said as it moved to curb evasion by fake invoicing.

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has introduced Rule 86B in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules which restricts use of input tax credit (ITC) for discharging GST liability to 99 per cent.

"The registered person shall not use the amount available in electronic credit ledger to discharge his liability towards output tax in excess of 99 per cent of tax liability, in cases where the value of taxable supply in a month exceeds Rs 50 lakh," the CBIC said.

While calculating the turnover threshold, sales from GST exempt goods and zero rates supply would not be included. However, this restriction will not apply where the managing director or any partner have paid more than Rs 1 lakh as income tax or the registered person has received a refund amount of more than Rs 1 lakh in the preceding financial year on account of unutilised input tax credit.

EY Tax Partner Abhishek Jain said the government has put restrictions on seamless input credit utilisation with introduction of Rule 89B, which blocks utilisation of ITC beyond 99 per cent of the output liability, for businesses having taxable turnover of more than Rs 50 lakh per month.

"With the government providing reasonable exceptions to this rule, the idea remains to prevent misutilisation of credit by businesses taking fake credits," Jain added. Further, the CBIC has amended GST rules restricting filing of outward supply details in GSTR-1 for business that have not paid tax for the past periods by filing GSTR 3B.

So far, until now, non-filing of GSTR 3B resulted in blockage of e-way bill but will now result in GSTR 1 blockage as well. Abhishek Jain, Tax Partner, EY said, "The government has now restricted filing of outward supply details in GSTR 1 return for businesses who have not paid tax for the past periods by filing GSTR 3B.

"The government's idea here seems to be to curb input tax credit passing by businesses which have otherwise not paid their GST liability," Jain added. AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said, "These changes indicate that government is grappling with lower tax collections and high tax evasions, burden of which will again be on honest taxpayers". The CBIC has also notified authentication of Aadhaar number or physical verification of business premises for the purposes of obtaining GST registration.

"This amendment has likely been introduced to prevent fraudulent registrations," Jain added. Also, the validity of electronic way bill provisions has been amended by the CBIC according to which the e-way bill will be valid for 1 day for every 200 km of travel, as against 100 km earlier. (PTI)