At the moment, e-invoice is compulsory for businesses with an annual turnover of over ₹20 crore.
In a notification issued on Monday, the government said it has amended the rule on the recommendations of the Council.
GST collections for July remained above ₹1.4 trillion mark for the fifth straight month with the second highest mop-up of ₹1.49 trillion
The GST Council, in its meeting on September 20, 2019, had recommended the introduction of an electronic invoice in GST in a phased manner.
MS Mani, partner, Deloitte India said the reduction of the e-invoicing threshold to Rs.10 cr will further expand the GST tax base and provide more data to the tax authorities enabling better compliance. “The progressive reduction of the e-invoicing threshold indicates that, over a period of time, e-invoicing will become mandatory for all categories of GST taxpayers," he said.
The government has managed to detect fake input tax credit (ITC) amounting to over ₹50,000 crore in a period of one and a half years, with more than 20,000 fake GST identification numbers (GSTINs).
The government has been lowering the threshold for eligible entities for e-invoicing in phases, beginning with entities with ₹500 crore turnover in October 2020 with 53,523 eligible GSTINs. It was expanded to ₹100 crore and above from January 2021 covering 91583 GSTINs, ₹50 crore and above from April 2021 covering 95461 GSTINs, and April 2022 covering 180000 GSTINs.
Rajat Bose, Partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co pointed out that while lowering the threshold for e-invoicing is in line with government's efforts to curb the menace of GST frauds and improve compliance, it would also mean that large corporates will need to ensure that their smaller vendors are adhering to this mandate so they don't end up loosing input credits."
