GST: Is input tax credit available for tax paid on mobiles given to staff?

Under GST, input tax credit is available for all inputs used in course of business

Is input tax credit available for the input tax paid on use of mobile phones and laptops given to employees? 

Under the goods and services tax (GST) law, input tax credit is available for all inputs used in the course or furtherance of business, unless tax credit in respect of such inputs has been specifically restricted. If laptops and mobiles are given to employees for use in the course or furtherance of business, you should be entitled to claim input tax credit, as input tax credit for laptops and mobile is not specifically restricted. However, if laptops and mobiles are meant for personal use of the employees, input tax credit in respect of the same should not be available. 

Our supplier sent us the goods and billed us only for the items. We paid the freight and made cheque payment to the truck driver. Do we need to do a reverse charge for this? 

In the aforesaid transaction, we understand that you have appointed the transporter and are contractually liable to make the payment to such transporter. To assess whether you should be required to pay tax as a recipient under reverse charge mechanism, you should first be required to determine whether the transporter is a Goods Transport Agency (GTA) or not. If the transporter is a GTA and such transporter doesn’t charge tax on its invoice, you should be required to pay tax at the rate of 5 per cent under reverse charge mechanism.   

If the transporter is not GTA, the services provided should be exempt as transportation of goods other than by a GTA has been specifically exempted under the GST law. 

When issuing bills to customers, can we just show them as ‘charges towards GST’ rather than mentioning CGST (central tax) and SGST (state tax ) separately, and later, during accounting split the relevant charges? I am told this is considered as misrepresentation. Is this true? Problem is that most of our bills are hand written.

According to specific provisions under the GST rules, you should be required to indicate the CGST and SGST separately in the tax invoice issued.

Amit Bhagat

All my clients are located outside India and they outsource work to me. The payments I receive are in foreign currency. I have registered myself for GST but I am not sure, if I need to pay it. Request to help me here. 

To determine the taxability of services rendered by you, you would need to examine whether such services should qualify as export of services or not. For this, you should be required to determine the place of supply of services, depending upon the precise nature of such services. 

If the place of supply of services rendered by you is outside the country, such services may qualify as export of services which is subjected to fulfilment of other prescribed conditions. 

We are registered in Hyderabad and we are registered only in one state. Our sales team go to different cities in the country. Hotels charge them CGST and SGST. Is it possible to claim CGST in this case? 

Input tax credit of CGST and SGST charged by a vendor for a particular state can be availed as input tax credit by the recipient, only if such recipient is also registered in the same state. In your transaction, if your employees stay in hotels located in a state other than Telangana, the CGST and SGST charged by the hotels should not be available as input tax credit.

 

The writer is tax partner, PwC India. Aditya Khanna, associate director, PwC contributed to this column. The views expressed are experts’ own. Send your queries to yourmoney@bsmail.in