
- Out-and-out sales and high sea sales outside the ambit of GST:Transactions, where goods are physically moved from a place outside India to another place outside India, without such goods entering the territory of India (known as out-and-out sales in trade parlance), have been declared neither as supply of goods nor supply of services under as Schedule III of the CGST Act. Transactions of high sea sales are also included under Schedule III.
- Reverse charge on procurements from unregistered dealers:Rather than a blanket levy of tax on procurements from unregistered dealers under reverse charge mechanism, Section 9(4) has been amended to levy tax only on procurements by notified assessees. It remains to be seen which class of assessees will be notified for this purpose
- Ambit of input tax credit widened:Section 17 of the CGST Act has been amended to expand the scope of input tax credit to include motor vehicles having a capacity of more than 13 persons. Credit on other motor cars is also available if they are used for the specified purposes. Further, credit on health insurance, outdoor catering, etc. will be available if such services are required to be provided to employees by the assessee in terms of any law for the time being in force (e.g. Factories Act, labor laws, etc.).
- Multiple registrations in one State:Earlier, separate registrations could be obtained in one State only if the assessee had distinct ‘business verticals’ in that State. This concept has been done away with by amending Section 25 and now, assessees may choose to obtain separate registrations in the same State irrespective of whether they qualify as distinct business verticals or not.
- Flexibility in issuing debit/credit notes:Earlier, the law, as well as the GSTN portal, accepted a single credit note or debit note against one invoice. However, assessees faced practical difficulties since certain debit/credit notes were to be issued against thousands of invoices. Section 34 has been amended to permit issuance of a single debit/credit note against multiple invoices. This will obviate the difficulty faced by assessees, especially in the cement, steel and automobile industries
- Simplification of GST returns:The GST Council approved putting in place system of filing a single monthly return in place of the existing 3 monthly returns. However, the existing system of filing GSTR-3B and GSTR-1 will remain in place until such a time the new monthly return is notified. Section 43A has been inserted in the CGST Act to carry out this change. However, this provision will not take effect from 1 February 2019 but will come into force only when the new system of returns is ready
- Order of set-off: Section 49 of the CGST Act, SGST input tax credit can be set off against IGST liability only if CGST input tax credit balance is insufficient for this purpose. Hence, the order of set-off of input tax credit is strictly laid down under the CGST Act itself. Further, SGST or CGST credit balance can be utilized against IGST liability only after IGST balance has been exhausted. Earlier, while the law was ambiguous on this point, the GSTN portal allowed set-off of SGST only after CGST balance was exhausted
- Transitional credit to exclude cesses: Section 140 of the CGST Act has been retrospectively amended to exclude cesses such as Krishi Kalyan Cess. This issue was hotly debated with the AAR denying the benefit of such credit in Re Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd. [2018-VIL-11-AAR]
- Amendment in place of supply provisions: The place of supply of transactions of transportation of goods to a place outside India will be the destination of goods in terms of the amendment made to Section 13 of the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017 (the IGST Act). Consequently, the Indian logistics firm will be able to take advantage of this provision to claim export benefits. Further, the place of supply in case of job work services has been excluded from the performance-based rule. Hence, job workers based in India will be able to claim export benefits
Source: mondaq.com