GST is the biggest tax reform in India, tremendously improving ease of doing business and increasing the taxpayer base in India by bringing in millions of small businesses in India. By abolishing and subsuming multiple taxes into a single system, tax complexities would be reduced while tax base is increased substantially. Under the new GST regime, all entities involved in buying or selling goods or providing services or both are required to register for GST. Entities without GST registration would not be allowed to collect GST from a customer or claim input tax credit of GST paid or could be penalised. Further, registration under GST is mandatory once an entity crosses the minimum threshold turnover of starts a new business that is expected to cross the prescribed turnover.

LIABILITY TO GET REGISTERED UNDER GST

GST registration is mandatory for all entities involved in the buying or selling or providing of services in India.

Turnover Criteria

As per the GST Council, entities in special category states with an annual turnover of Rs.10 lakhs and above would be required to register under GST. All other entities in rest of India would be required to register for GST if annual turnover exceeds Rs.20 lakhs. Aggregate value is value of all taxable supplies, exempt supplies, export of goods or services or both and inter-State supplies of a person having same PAN. Aggregate turnover does not include CGST, SGST, IGST and GST cess.

In addition to the turnover criteria, there are various other conditions that could mandate GST registration.

• Every person who is registered under an earlier law (i.e., Excise, VAT, Service Tax etc.) needs to register under GST.
• When a business which is registered has been transferred to someone/demerged, the transferee shall take registration with effect from the date of transfer.
• Anyone who drives inter-state supply of goods.
• A person who occasionally supplies goods and/or services in a territory where GST is applicable but he does not have a fixed place of business. Such a person will be treated as a casual taxable person or as a non-resident taxable person as per GST.
• Agents of a supplier.
• Those paying tax under the reverse charge mechanism.
• Input service distributor i.e an office of the supplier of goods/services which receives tax invoices on receipt of input services and issues tax invoices for the purpose of distributing the credit of CGST/SGST/IGST paid on the said services to your branch with same PAN.
• E-commerce operator or aggregator.
• Person who supplies via e-commerce aggregator
• Person supplying online information and database access or retrieval services from a place outside India to a person in India, other than a registered taxable person

Excluded from GST Registration

• Farmers supplying producing from cultivation farm
• Individuals which are not crossing the paid up capital investments
• Individuals manufacturing subsidized supplies of services and goods
• Individual manufacturing Non-GST/Non-Taxable supplies of goods and services
• Events that neither Supply of Goods nor Services
• Individuals manufacturing goods and services under reverse charge

Time Limit

An entity liable to be registered under GST should apply for registration under GST within 30 days from the date on which the entity becomes liable to register for GST. Casual taxable persons and non-resident taxable persons are required to be registered under GST, prior to commencing business.

Pan India Operations:

An entity operating in multiple states will have to get registered separately for each of the States from where taxable supply of goods or services is made.

Voluntary Registration

Any entity wishing to claim input tax credit can registered voluntarily, even if not liable to be registered. All voluntarily registered entities will also have to comply with regulations as applicable to a normal taxable person.

Is PAN number mandatory?

PAN is mandatory for normal taxpayers and casual taxable persons to be registered under GST. However, PAN is not mandatory for a non-resident taxable person for obtaining registration.

Primary authorized signatory

He is the person who is primarily responsible to perform action on the GST System Portal on behalf of the taxpayer. It can be the promoter of the business or any person nominated by the promoters of the business.

GST number and certificate

GST Registration Number is a 15 Digit identification number which is allotted to each applicant. Its’ completely based on the PAN Number and State code. First two digits represent the state code and another 10 digit represent the Pan number of the client, one digit represent the entity code (like proprietorship firm, partnership etc.), one digit is blank and last one is represent check digit.

GST certificate is provided by the Government only in soft-copy format. Once GSTIN is allotted, GST certificate can be downloaded from the GST Portal at any time by the taxpayer.

Composition Scheme

Composition scheme is presented for small taxpayers to decrease compliance on them

• File can be returns quarterly instead of monthly
• Tax slab are convenient and very low for manufacturer 2%, restaurant 5% and 1% for other suppliers respectively
• No provision of collecting tax invoice from consumer
• Cannot access input tax credit

Only those individuals who completes following eligibility cab apply for composition scheme

• Doing business in intra state supply of goods (or service in restaurant)
• The annual turnover must be below 75 lakhs (Rs. 50 Lakhs for North Eastern States) in previous financial year
• Should pay tax at traditional rates if he is liable under reverse charge scheme
• Should not be supplier for any ecommerce business
• Should not be manufacturer, supplier, distributor of Tobacco, Pan Masala, ice cream etc.
• If the person is not supplying any goods for which taxes are not levied

You have to file an online application form to get benefited under Composition Scheme. The taxpayer who are eligible to get this scheme are classified below

• Migrated Taxpayer: Any taxpayer who has migrated from previous taxation law is permitted provisional registration certificate can apply under Form GST CMP-01 and further proceedings in Form GST CMP-03 within 30 days after 1st July 2017.
• New Taxpayer: Any individual who has enrolled in GST registration certificate with effect from 01-07-2017 can apply Form GST REG-01 and select option to pay composition money in New Registration Form

DOCUMENTATION FOR REGISTRATION

Company documents

• PAN card of the company
• Registration Certificate of the company
• Memorandum of Association (MOA) /Articles of Association (AOA)
• Copy of Bank Statement
• Declaration to comply with the provisions
• Copy of Board resolution
• Director related documents
• PAN and ID proof of directors

Registered Office documents

• Copy of electricity bill/landline bill, water Bill
• No objection certificate of the owner
• Rent agreement (in case premises are rented)
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Documents required for Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP):

• PAN card of the LLP
• Registration Certificate of the LLP
• LLP Partnership agreement
• Copy of Bank Statement of the LLP
• Declaration to comply with the provisions
• Copy of Board resolution
• Designated Partner related documents
• PAN and ID proof of designated partners

Registered Office documents

• Copy of electricity bill/landline bill, water Bill
• No objection certificate of the owner
• Rent agreement (in case premises are rented)
• Documents required for Normal Partnerships:

Partnership documents

• PAN card of the Partnership
• Partnership Deed
• Copy of Bank Statement
• Declaration to comply with the provisions
• Partner related documents
• PAN and ID proof of designated partners

Registered Office documents

• Copy of electricity bill/landline bill, water Bill
• No objection certificate of the owner
• Rent agreement (in case premises are rented)

Documents required for Sole proprietorship/Individual

• Individual documents
• PAN card and ID proof of the individual.
• Copy of Cancelled cheque or bank statement.
• Declaration to comply with the provisions.

Registered Office documents

• Copy of electricity bill/landline bill, water Bill
• No objection certificate of the owner
• Rent agreement (in case premises are rented)