Recent announcements relating to GST

In the recent times, the Government has proposed various changes relating to GST. In this regard, please find below our update on the same:

1. GST refund to MSMEs

• All pending GST refunds to MSMEs, shall be paid within 30 days.
• In future, all GST refunds shall be paid within 60 days of their filing.

(Finance Minister in her speech dated August 23, 2019 on Measures to Achieve Higher Economic Growth)

1. E-Invoice

The GST council has decided to introduce e-invoicing on voluntary basis from January 2020. In this respect, GSTN has published draft e-invoice standards and e-invoice template to ensure complete inter-operability of e-invoices across the GST ecosystem to eliminate any data entry.

The draft e-invoice template is available at  https://www.gstn.org/e-invoice/. Notably, the formats are based on Universal Business Language (‘UBL’) Standard. Many countries such as USA, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand etc. have adopted standards based on UBL.

1. GST Appellate Tribunal

The Government has notified the establishment of State Benches and Area Benches of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal (‘GSTAT’). The location of benches for the key States and Union Territories (‘UT’), are as follows:

It is pertinent to note that State benches have not yet been notified for Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, UT of Jammu and UT of Kashmir.

The Government has also issued GSTAT (Appointment of President and Members) Rules, 2019 for appointment of members of GSTAT.