Govt notifies 18 sections, 2 rules for GST

Days ahead of the rollout of Goods and Service Tax (GST), the government on Tuesday notified sections in the GST Act dealing with mandatory registration of current indirect tax payers in the new regime.

As many as 18 sections relating to registration of current central excise, service tax and VAT payers with the GST-Network (GSTN) as well as transitional provisions were notified today.

As a precursor to GST, the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) has also notified two rules -- registration and composition levy.

All the notifications would be effective from June 22.

GST, which is to be rolled out from July 1, will unify over a dozen central and state levies into one and all those currently paying such taxes need to migrate to the new system.

Every business carrying out a taxable supply of goods or services with turnover exceeding the threshold limit of Rs 20 lakh will be required to register.

GST registration would allow for seamless input tax credit.

The CBEC has also notified 'www.Gst.Gov.In' as the common 'Goods and Services Tax Electronic Portal'.

As many as 65 lakh out of the 80 lakh taxpayers have already migrated from various platforms to GST.

All of these businesses will be assigned a unique Goods and Services Tax Identification Number.

The Sections in the Central GST (CGST) Act notified provide for all suppliers, anyone making any inter-sate taxable supply and every existing licence holder and business entity, to register for GST.

Input service distributor, e-commerce operator and person supplying online information and data base access or retrieval service are also required to register.

The provision exempts agriculturist from registration to "the extent of supply of produce out of cultivation of land".

It also exempts "any person engaged exclusively in the business of supplying goods or services or both that are not liable to tax or wholly exempt from tax".

The notified sections provide that 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, would be treated as a casual taxable person.

A person with multiple business verticals in a state may obtain a separate registration for each business vertical.

PAN is mandatory for GST registration except for a non- resident person who can get GST registration on the basis of certain other documents.