GST
Guides
Step-by-step walkthroughs for Indian taxpayers.
133 guides
The GST series
From supply to appeals, in 15 parts.
What GST Replaced, and Why There Are Three Taxes
Most explanations of GST begin with the rates. That is the wrong end. The rates change; the structure does not, and almost every practical difficulty a business runs into — the wrong tax charged, credit that cannot be used, a demand from a state that was not expecting o…
18 Oct 2026
Supply: the Event GST Taxes
The first question most people ask about a transaction is what rate it attracts. The question that comes before it, and decides more disputes, is whether there has been a supply at all.
5 Oct 2026
Place of Supply: CGST and SGST, or IGST
A supplier in Mumbai sends an invoice to a customer in Mumbai, for work done on a building in Goa. Does the invoice carry CGST and SGST, or IGST? Most people would answer from the two addresses on the invoice. The Act answers from neither. The answer is IGST, and the re…
5 Oct 2026
Time of Supply: the Month the Liability Falls In
GST is paid month by month, or quarter by quarter, on the supplies that fall in each period. A supply begun in March, invoiced in April and paid for in May belongs to one of those months, not to all three. Which one is not a matter of accounting policy. The Act fixes it…
5 Oct 2026
Value of Supply: the Amount the Tax Is Charged On
A rate is a percentage of something. The previous guides settled whether there is a supply, where it is taxed and when. This one settles the something: the value on which the rate is applied.
5 Oct 2026
Who Must Register
“Do I need GST registration?” is usually asked as a question about turnover, and answered with a single figure. The figure is real, but it answers only part of the question. The Act has two routes to registration. One is a turnover threshold. The other is a list of acti…
5 Oct 2026
Registration, and What Goes Wrong
Applying for GST registration looks like a form-filling exercise. Most of the time it is. The trouble is in the details the form does not make obvious: when the thirty days began, which State an application belongs in, how many registrations one business needs, and what…
10 Oct 2026
Input Tax Credit: the Conditions in Section 16(2)
Input tax credit is what makes GST a tax on value added rather than on every transaction. A business pays tax on what it buys, collects tax on what it sells, and pays the government only the difference. Without credit, GST would cascade exactly as the taxes it replaced …
5 Oct 2026
Blocked Credits
The previous guide set out the conditions a credit claim must meet. A business can meet every one of them, holding the invoice, appearing in GSTR-2B, with the tax paid and the goods received, and still be denied the credit. The reason is section 17(5) of the CGST Act , …
18 Oct 2026
Apportionment and Reversal of Credit
The two previous guides treated each purchase as either creditable or not. Many purchases are neither wholly one nor wholly the other. An office’s rent, its accountant’s fees and its electricity serve the whole business, including any part of it that makes exempt suppli…
5 Oct 2026
GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B
Most registered businesses file two documents every month or quarter, and many treat them as two versions of the same thing. They are not. GSTR-1 is a statement of what the business sold, invoice by invoice, which feeds its customers’ credit. GSTR-3B is the return on wh…
11 Oct 2026
The Three Electronic Ledgers
A business may hold Rs 5 lakh of credit and still have to pay cash. Its credit may be of the wrong kind for its liability, or blocked from paying the liability it has, or the liability may not be tax at all. The reason in each case is the structure of section 49 of the …
5 Oct 2026
The Annual Return and Reconciliation Statement
Twelve GSTR-1s and twelve GSTR-3Bs a year might seem to tell the department everything. They do not. Each was filed within weeks of its month’s end, before the books were closed, the auditor had finished, or the year’s credit notes had been issued. The annual return bri…
11 Oct 2026
Notices and Demands: DRC-01A, DRC-01, and Sections 73, 74 and 74A
A demand under GST usually arrives in stages. There may first be an intimation that the officer has worked out an amount. Then comes a show cause notice proposing a demand with interest and penalty, then an opportunity to reply and be heard, and finally an order. At eac…
13 Oct 2026
Appeals and Pre-Deposit
An adverse order under section 73, 74 or 74A ends the adjudication, but not the dispute. The order can be appealed. The appeal is subject to two conditions that decide more cases than the merits do. It must be filed within a fixed period that can be extended only once a…
14 Oct 2026
Registration, step by step
Applying, amending, cancelling and revoking, for each kind of registrant.
Applying for GST Registration: the Steps Every Applicant Takes
Most applications for GST registration do not fail on the law. They stall on procedure: a Temporary Reference Number that lapses after fifteen days, an Aadhaar link sent to the wrong person, an appointment at a GST Suvidha Kendra that nobody booked, or a rent agreement …
10 Oct 2026
Registering a Proprietorship
A sole proprietor’s first difficulty is usually one of identity. The business has a trade name, a shop, perhaps a bank account and a letterhead, but in law it is not a separate person. GST follows that. The registration is taken in the proprietor’s own name and on the p…
10 Oct 2026
Registering a Partnership Firm or LLP
A partnership firm and a limited liability partnership look alike on the GST portal. Both have partners, both appear in the same tab of the application, and both carry the word “partnership”. The law treats them differently. A firm under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932…
10 Oct 2026
Registering a Company
A company applying for GST registration has records that a proprietor or firm does not. Its name, its Corporate Identity Number and its directors’ identification numbers already sit with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. The GST portal checks against that record, and a…
10 Oct 2026
Registering as a Casual Taxable Person
A trader based in one State takes a stall at a ten-day exhibition in another. The trader has no office there and will leave when the exhibition closes. Two things about GST registration come as a surprise. It must be in place before the first sale, and the tax on the ex…
10 Oct 2026
Registering as a Non-Resident Taxable Person
A foreign company plans to sell goods at a trade fair in India, or to carry out a short contract here. It has no office in India, and none of its people live here. To register under GST it needs things that a foreign business does not usually have to hand. It needs an a…
10 Oct 2026
Registering as a Tax Deductor (TDS)
A government office that buys stationery, a public sector undertaking that awards a works contract, and, since October 2024, a manufacturer buying steel scrap from a dealer all share an obligation that has nothing to do with their own sales. Each may have to deduct GST …
10 Oct 2026
Registering as an E-Commerce Operator Collecting TCS
An online marketplace can face three registration questions at once, and they lead to different forms. It may have to collect tax from what it pays its sellers. It may be treated as the supplier of certain services sold on its platform. And if it sells its own stock, it…
10 Oct 2026
Registering as an Input Service Distributor
A company is registered in five States. Its head office buys the audit, the software licences and the advertising campaign for all five, and the supplier invoices the head office’s GSTIN. The tax on those invoices is credit that belongs, in part, to the other four regis…
10 Oct 2026
Opting In and Out of the Composition Scheme
The composition scheme is chosen in a single online form that no officer approves. That simplicity hides two difficulties. The deadline falls before the year the choice is for begins, so a business deciding in April is a year late. And because no one checks eligibility …
10 Oct 2026
Amending a Registration
A business moves premises, takes in a partner, changes its trading name or loses the director whose mobile number receives every portal OTP. Each change leaves the registration certificate out of date, and the question is how to correct it. Some changes take effect as s…
10 Oct 2026
Cancelling a Registration on Application
A business that closes, is sold, converts into a company or loses its proprietor does not stop being a registered person on its own. The GSTIN stays live, returns keep falling due, and late fees keep running until the registration is cancelled. Cancellation also has a p…
11 Oct 2026
Getting a Cancelled Registration Back: Revocation
A registration cancelled by the officer, most often for returns not filed, stops a business from charging tax and its customers from taking credit. The business usually finds out when an invoice is rejected or a customer’s credit fails to match. The way back is an appli…
11 Oct 2026
Responding to a Notice Proposing Cancellation
The notice usually arrives as an email saying that a document has been issued on the portal. By the time it is opened, the GSTIN may already show as “Suspended”. The business cannot issue a tax invoice. Its customers are asking why their credit has stopped matching. The…
11 Oct 2026
When a Surrender Goes Wrong: Queries, Rejection, Delay and Retrospective Cancellation
A business closes and files FORM GST REG-16. The GSTIN turns “Suspended” and then nothing seems to happen. Months later the owner finds that the application was rejected after a query nobody answered. Or the officer has cancelled the registration on his own motion, from…
11 Oct 2026
When a Cancelled Registration Is Restored by the Department or on Appeal
A business whose registration was cancelled by the officer often looks for a way back other than its own revocation application. The ninety days have passed. Or the application was rejected. Or the cancellation was wrong in the first place. The usual assumption is that …
11 Oct 2026
Returns, step by step
Every GST return: what to have ready, the due dates, the portal steps, and putting mistakes right.
The GST Returns Calendar: Who Files What, and When
A registered business does not file “a GST return”. It files a set of statements and returns, each under a different section, each with its own date, and several of them unable to open until another has been filed. A missed GSTR-1 holds up the GSTR-3B for the same month…
11 Oct 2026
Filing GSTR-1, and Correcting It in GSTR-1A
GSTR-1 used to be the statement a business filed and then forgot. Its figures fed its customers’ credit, but its own tax was settled in GSTR-3B, where it could type whatever it chose. That gap has closed. GSTR-1 now fills in the liability in the business’s own GSTR-3B, …
11 Oct 2026
The Invoice Management System and GSTR-2B
Since October 2024 a registered business’s input tax credit has depended on a dashboard. Every invoice its suppliers report lands there, and the business can accept it, reject it, or keep it pending. If it does nothing, the portal treats the invoice as accepted. If it r…
11 Oct 2026
Filing GSTR-3B and Paying the Tax
GSTR-3B began in 2017 as a stop-gap summary that the taxpayer typed in by hand. It is now largely filled in for the taxpayer before it is opened. Liability comes from the taxpayer’s own GSTR-1 and GSTR-1A and, since the July 2025 tax period, cannot be edited. Credit com…
11 Oct 2026
The QRMP Scheme: Quarterly Returns, IFF and Monthly Payment
A small business in the quarterly scheme files four GSTR-3B returns a year instead of twelve, but it still pays tax every month. The scheme’s difficulty lies in that split. In the first two months of each quarter there is no return, yet there may be a challan to pay and…
11 Oct 2026
Filing Nil Returns by SMS or on the Portal
A registration with no business in a month still has returns to file. Section 39(8) requires a return “for every tax period whether or not any supplies of goods or services or both have been made during such tax period”. The nil return is the simplest filing in GST, but…
11 Oct 2026
Filing the Annual Return, GSTR-9
Most of GSTR-9 is already filled in when the filer opens it. The portal builds it from the year’s GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, and some of those figures cannot be changed. The difficulty lies in the rest. Each table has to be checked against the books. Each financial year has it…
11 Oct 2026
Filing the Reconciliation Statement, GSTR-9C
GSTR-9C is the one GST form that starts from the audited accounts rather than from the returns. That changes who prepares it. The figures in GSTR-9 come out of the portal. The figures in GSTR-9C come out of the balance sheet and the profit and loss account, adjusted lin…
11 Oct 2026
Filing the Final Return, GSTR-10
A cancelled registration feels finished, but the law leaves one return still due. It counts the goods and capital goods on hand on the last day, and it collects the input tax credit that went into them. Businesses that have closed often miss it, and the department has a…
13 Oct 2026
Composition Returns: CMP-08 and GSTR-4
A composition taxpayer files fewer returns than anyone else on GST: four quarterly statements and one annual return. The two forms work differently.
15 Oct 2026
Returns for Non-Residents and OIDAR Suppliers: GSTR-5 and GSTR-5A
A foreign business registered in India for a trade fair or a short contract does not file GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B. Neither does a foreign streaming service or software publisher selling to Indian consumers. Rule 61 of the CGST Rules expressly excludes both from GSTR-3B. Each…
11 Oct 2026
The ISD Return, GSTR-6
The difficult part of an Input Service Distributor’s month is not the form. It is the arithmetic before the form. A head office receives invoices for audit, software and advertising that serve branches in several States. Each invoice has to be attributed to the branches…
11 Oct 2026
TDS and TCS Returns: GSTR-7 and GSTR-8
Tax deducted at source by a government department, and tax collected at source by an e-commerce operator, end up in the same place: the supplier’s electronic cash ledger. The route there runs through two returns and an act by the supplier. The deductor files FORM GSTR-7…
11 Oct 2026
Returns for UIN Holders: GSTR-11
An embassy pays GST on its rent, its vehicles and its catering like any other buyer. Whether it gets that tax back depends on paperwork completed long before any refund is claimed. The supplier must be registered and must have quoted the embassy’s Unique Identity Number…
11 Oct 2026
Correcting Mistakes in Returns
A GST return, once filed, cannot be opened and edited. There is no “revised GSTR-3B” in the way there is a revised income-tax return. Every correction is made somewhere else. It may go in an amendment form for the same period, in a later period’s return, or in a payment…
12 Oct 2026
Late Returns: Late Fee, Interest, the Three-Year Bar and Notices
A return that misses its due date does not simply become a late return. It sets off several separate things. A late fee starts to run for each day. Interest starts on any tax not paid in time. The later returns behind it cannot be filed, because the portal enforces fili…
11 Oct 2026
Input tax credit, step by step
Claiming, reconciling and reversing credit, the ITC forms, mismatch notices and refunds.
Claiming Input Tax Credit Month by Month: the Checklist
Most credit disputes do not turn on a hard question of law. They turn on one condition out of seven that nobody checked in the month the credit was taken: a supplier who never filed, goods that had not arrived, a canteen bill that was always blocked, or an invoice taken…
12 Oct 2026
Reconciling Purchases with GSTR-2B
The purchase register and GSTR-2B describe the same purchases from two ends. The register is what the business recorded when bills arrived. GSTR-2B is what its suppliers reported, cut off on fixed dates and shaped by the business’s own actions in the Invoice Management …
12 Oct 2026
Reporting Credit in GSTR-3B Table 4, and the Reversal and RCM Ledgers
Table 4 of GSTR-3B arrives mostly filled in. Credit from GSTR-2B is already in it, and a filer who accepts the screen as it stands will often get it wrong. The auto-populated figure includes credit that is blocked, credit for goods not yet received, and credit that has …
12 Oct 2026
Time Limits for Claiming Credit
Credit that has not been taken is not lost at once. It can be taken in any later return, but only until a fixed date, and after that it is gone even if every other condition is met. The date is easy to state and easy to misapply. It runs from the year of the document, n…
12 Oct 2026
Reversing Credit When a Supplier Is Not Paid in 180 Days: Rule 37
A business takes credit in the month the supplier’s invoice reaches its GSTR-2B, usually well before it pays the invoice. GST allows credit to run ahead of payment, but only for 180 days. If the supplier is still unpaid, wholly or in part, at the end of that period, cre…
12 Oct 2026
Reversing Credit When a Supplier Has Not Filed GSTR-3B: Rule 37A
Each October the September GSTR-2B carries a table that appears in no other month. It lists credit taken during the last financial year on invoices whose suppliers reported them in GSTR-1 but had not filed their own GSTR-3B for that period by 30 September. The recipient…
12 Oct 2026
Common Credit, Step by Step: Rules 42 and 43
A business that makes both taxable and exempt supplies reverses part of its credit every month, by a formula. Many such businesses do not think of themselves as making exempt supplies at all. A trader earning rent from a residential flat, a company that sells a plot of …
12 Oct 2026
When the Credit Ledger Is Blocked: Rules 86A and 86B
A business opens its electronic credit ledger to pay the month’s tax and finds that part of the balance cannot be used. Sometimes the ledger shows less than nothing: a negative balance that swallows each month’s new credit as it arrives. The cause is usually an order un…
12 Oct 2026
Credit on Registration or Leaving Composition: ITC-01
A business that registers, or that leaves the composition scheme, usually already holds stock bought with GST in the price. That tax can become input tax credit, but not through the monthly return. It has to be claimed once, in a separate declaration, FORM GST ITC-01, w…
12 Oct 2026
Transferring Credit on Sale, Merger or Demerger: ITC-02
An electronic credit ledger belongs to a GSTIN, not to a business. When a business is sold, merged, demerged or amalgamated, the credit stays in the old registration unless it is moved. FORM GST ITC-02 is the means, and three things can go wrong. The law lets the credit…
12 Oct 2026
Paying Back Credit on Opting for Composition or Exemption: ITC-03
A business that moves into the composition scheme, or whose supplies become wholly exempt, has usually taken credit on goods it still holds. The law requires that credit to be paid back. FORM GST ITC-03 is where the amount is worked out and paid, and after it is paid, w…
12 Oct 2026
Goods Sent for Job Work: ITC-04
Goods at a job worker’s premises still belong to the principal, but they are out of the principal’s sight and off its shop floor. The law lets them go out without tax, on two conditions: they must come back, or be sold from the job worker’s premises, within fixed period…
12 Oct 2026
Answering a DRC-01C: Credit Above GSTR-2B (Rule 88D)
A DRC-01C usually arrives by email a day or two after GSTR-3B is filed, and it is often noticed only when GSTR-1 for the next month will not go through. The intimation says that the credit claimed in the return is more than GSTR-2B made available, and asks for payment o…
12 Oct 2026
Answering a Scrutiny Notice on Credit: ASMT-10
A notice in FORM GST ASMT-10 is the department’s first written question about a year’s returns. It usually arrives two or three years after the year it covers, by which time the people who prepared those returns may have moved on. On credit, it usually lists a set of co…
13 Oct 2026
Refund of Unutilised Credit: Who Can Claim and How
A business whose credit ledger keeps growing faces a hard rule. Credit that cannot be used is not, in general, refundable. An exporter that pays no tax on its sales, or a manufacturer whose inputs are taxed at 18 per cent and whose product is taxed at 5 per cent, will a…
14 Oct 2026
Refund of Credit on Exports and SEZ Supplies under LUT
An exporter that pays no IGST on its exports has no output tax to absorb its credit, so the credit has to come back as a refund. Getting it back depends on choices and documents that come well before the refund application. The letter of undertaking has to be in place b…
12 Oct 2026
Refund on an Inverted Duty Structure
A manufacturer whose product is taxed at 5 per cent, but whose raw materials and packing are taxed at 12 or 18 per cent, collects less tax on its sales than it paid on its purchases. The difference collects in the credit ledger. The law refunds some of it, but not all. …
12 Oct 2026
Assessment and audit, step by step
Assessments, departmental and special audit, notices, orders and recovery, and inspection, search and summons.
Assessment under GST: the Kinds, and Who Does It
Under GST there is no annual assessment order that closes a year. A business files its returns, pays the tax it has worked out itself, and the year stays open. Later, the department may question the figures in any of several ways: a scrutiny notice, an audit, an inquiry…
13 Oct 2026
Provisional Assessment: Section 60
Sometimes a business cannot say what its tax is. A new product may fall between two headings with different rates. A price charged to a related company may be waiting on a valuation. Paying at the lower rate risks a demand with interest and penalty later. Paying at the …
13 Oct 2026
Scrutiny of Returns: ASMT-10, ASMT-11 and ASMT-12
Scrutiny is the department’s lightest form of review, and the most common. No officer visits, and no books are called for. An officer compares a year’s returns with each other and with data the department already holds. Each gap is set out in a notice in FORM GST ASMT-1…
13 Oct 2026
Best Judgment Assessment of Non-Filers: Section 62
A monthly return that is not filed does not simply stay unfiled. Within days the portal sends a notice in FORM GSTR-3A. If the return still is not filed, an officer may assess the tax without it, in an order in FORM GST ASMT-13, using whatever material the department ha…
13 Oct 2026
Assessment of Unregistered Persons: Section 63
The first sign of a section 63 assessment is often an SMS with a fifteen-character number ending in “TMP” and a password. The person may never have registered, believing the turnover was below the threshold or the supply exempt. Or the department may have cancelled the …
13 Oct 2026
Summary Assessment: Section 64
Most GST demands arrive slowly: a scrutiny notice, a show cause notice, a reply, a hearing, then an order. A summary assessment does not. It is an order of assessment passed at once, without any prior show cause notice required by the section. It is typically made after…
13 Oct 2026
Keeping the Records an Audit Will Ask For
An audit notice usually arrives three or four years after the year it covers. By then the accountant may have changed, the accounting software may have been replaced and the godown may have moved. The question the audit team asks is simple: show us the records behind th…
13 Oct 2026
Departmental Audit: Section 65
A notice in FORM GST ADT-01 says that the department has decided to audit the books for one or more years, and names a date to appear with them. Unlike a scrutiny notice, it does not list discrepancies. The audit team finds those itself, in the books, over the following…
13 Oct 2026
Special Audit: Section 66
A special audit usually starts in the middle of something else. A scrutiny, an inquiry or an investigation is already running when a letter arrives directing the business to have its books audited by a named chartered accountant or cost accountant. The business did not …
13 Oct 2026
Before a Notice: DRC-01A and Paying Voluntarily
The cheapest point to settle a GST demand is before the show cause notice. The law fixes the price. Where there is no fraud, tax and interest are payable with no penalty at all. Where there is fraud or suppression, the penalty is fifteen per cent. Once a notice issues, …
13 Oct 2026
Replying to a Show Cause Notice, and the Hearing
A show cause notice under GST tends to arrive as two documents with a deadline that looks short. One is the notice itself, often with annexures. The other is a one-page summary in FORM GST DRC-01. The reply has to go in on FORM GST DRC-06, a form with one text box and a…
13 Oct 2026
The Order, Rectification, and the Clock for Appeal
When a GST demand is confirmed, the portal shows a one-page FORM GST DRC-07 with a table of tax, interest and penalty and a date for payment. Behind it there should be an order, signed by the officer, that sets out the facts and reasons. Sometimes the two disagree. Some…
13 Oct 2026
Recovery, and Paying in Instalments
An order confirming a demand is not, on the day it is served, a licence to empty the person’s bank account. The Act gives a period to pay or to appeal, a list of the ways the department may recover once that period has run, and a route to pay over time. The difficulty f…
13 Oct 2026
Inspection and Search: Section 67
A visit by GST officers to business premises is unsettling partly because it is unfamiliar. The person in charge may not know what the officers are entitled to do, what document authorises them, what is recorded, and what the person is entitled to receive at the end. Th…
13 Oct 2026
Seizure and Provisional Release
When goods are seized during a search, the business loses the use of its stock while the department decides whether to propose confiscation. The Act deals with this in three ways. It allows the goods to be left in the owner’s custody under an order not to deal with them…
13 Oct 2026
Summons: Section 70
A summons under the GST Act is a demand to appear. It may be addressed to the taxpayer, to a director or employee, to a supplier or customer, or to anyone else whose evidence the officer considers necessary. It carries legal force. The person summoned is bound to attend…
13 Oct 2026
Appeals and rulings, step by step
First appeal, revision, the Tribunal, the High Court and Supreme Court, writs, pre-deposit, and advance rulings.
The Appeal Ladder: Who Hears What, and When
A person who receives an adverse GST order usually asks two questions: where does the challenge go, and how long is there to take it there. Each rung of the ladder has its own forum, its own clock and, at the first two rungs, its own payment. A mistake about which rung …
14 Oct 2026
Filing a First Appeal: APL-01
The first appeal is often lost before anyone reads the grounds. It may be filed a few days after the outer limit. It may be filed against the original order after a rectification has replaced it. The pre-deposit may be short. Or the person may not know whether the appea…
14 Oct 2026
Pre-Deposit, and the Stay of Recovery
An appeal against a GST demand cannot be filed until money has been paid. How much depends on what the appellant admits, how much tax is in dispute, which tax heads are involved, and whether the order demands tax at all or only a penalty. Where it can be paid from is an…
14 Oct 2026
The First Appeal Hearing and Order: APL-04
Once the final acknowledgement issues, the appeal waits in the Appellate Authority’s queue. What follows is governed by a few sub-sections that are easy to misread. The appellant has a right to be heard, but only three adjournments. New evidence is admitted only on cond…
14 Oct 2026
When the Department Appeals: Review Orders and APL-03
A demand dropped in adjudication, or a refund sanctioned, is not final on the day it is issued. For six months the department can still take it to the Appellate Authority, and the person who won learns of this only when a notice of hearing arrives. The person did not ch…
14 Oct 2026
Revision: Section 108
An order can seem settled once no one has appealed against it for six months. Then a notice in FORM GST RVN-01 arrives from a senior officer. It says the order was “erroneous in so far as it is prejudicial to the interest of revenue”, that he intends to revise it, and t…
14 Oct 2026
Appealing to the GST Appellate Tribunal
For eight years the second appeal in GST existed only on paper. Orders of Appellate Authorities piled up with no Tribunal to hear them. Taxpayers kept recovery at bay through a circular, and the time to appeal was frozen by a removal of difficulties order. That has chan…
14 Oct 2026
Before the Tribunal: Hearing, Order and Rectification
Once an appeal is registered, the work moves from the portal to the bench. Many people’s experience of appeal is the first stage, where an officer of the department hears the case alone, often briefly. The Tribunal works differently. It is a judicial body with a cause l…
14 Oct 2026
Appeals to the High Court and the Supreme Court
A person who loses before the Appellate Tribunal often expects the High Court to look at the case again. It will not. Above the Tribunal, the facts are treated as settled. A further appeal is heard only on a question of law, and only if the court accepts that the questi…
14 Oct 2026
Writ Petitions in GST Matters
For most of GST’s first decade, a large share of disputes reached the High Courts not by appeal but by writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. Some petitions challenged orders passed without a hearing. Others challenged orders by an officer with no power to…
14 Oct 2026
Getting the Pre-Deposit Back
Winning an appeal does not return the money paid to file it. The pre-deposit stays in the Government’s account until it is claimed, through the same refund form used for every other refund, under a ground most people never need. Departments have rejected such claims as …
14 Oct 2026
Applying for an Advance Ruling
A business that is unsure how GST applies to something it does, or plans to do, has two choices. It can take a view and wait to see whether an audit or a notice challenges that view years later, with interest running. Or it can ask in advance. The advance ruling is the …
14 Oct 2026
Appealing an Advance Ruling
An advance ruling is meant to settle a question quickly. The appeal against it is built the same way. It must be filed within thirty days, it is decided by a two-member body that is supposed to rule within ninety days, and there is no further appeal under the Act. The s…
14 Oct 2026
The Section 128A Waiver, and Appeals Withdrawn Under It
Between November 2024 and June 2025, businesses holding old demands under section 73 had to decide whether to keep fighting or to settle. The demands covered GST’s first three years. Settling meant paying the whole of the tax demanded by 31 March 2025, and then filing a…
14 Oct 2026
E-invoicing and e-way bills, step by step
Who must e-invoice, generating IRNs and e-way bills, special cases, and goods stopped in transit.
E-Invoicing: Who Must, and for Which Documents
A business usually finds out that it should have been e-invoicing in one of three ways: a customer’s accounts team refuses an invoice without a QR code, a vehicle is stopped on the highway, or an officer asks why the GSTR-1 tables were typed in by hand. Each time the qu…
15 Oct 2026
Generating an E-Invoice: IRN, QR Code and Cancellation
E-invoicing does not mean the Government writes the invoice. The business still raises it in its own billing system. What changes is the order of events. The invoice data goes to an Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) first. The IRP checks it, gives it a unique Invoice Re…
15 Oct 2026
When an E-Invoice Is Missed or Wrong
An e-invoicing error usually surfaces late. A truck is stopped and the officer finds a printed invoice with no QR code. A customer’s GSTR-2B shows a credit note that was never meant to be issued. An IRN carries the wrong GSTIN and the 24 hours to cancel it have passed. …
15 Oct 2026
E-Way Bills: When One Is Needed
Most questions about e-way bills are really one question: does this movement need one? The answer turns on four things. The first is who causes the goods to move. The second is the value of the consignment, worked out in a particular way. The third is whether the moveme…
15 Oct 2026
Generating, Extending and Cancelling an E-Way Bill
Generating an e-way bill takes a few minutes. Most of the trouble comes later. A truck breaks down and the bill expires at midnight. A wrong GSTIN is spotted the next morning, after the window to cancel has closed. A customer finds a bill raised in its name for goods it…
15 Oct 2026
E-Way Bills in Special Cases
The e-way bill form is built around a simple trip. One supplier sends goods on one invoice to one buyer, in one truck, by road. Many movements are not like that. Goods may go to a job worker and come back. They may be billed to one party and delivered to another. A mach…
15 Oct 2026
Goods in Transit: Inspection, Detention and Release
A truck stopped on the highway has a short clock. The goods may be perishable, the buyer is waiting, and the vehicle earns nothing while it stands. The person in charge is usually a driver who did not prepare the documents. Whether the vehicle moves on in minutes, is he…
15 Oct 2026
Confiscation: Section 130
Detention under section 129 ends with a penalty and the goods going back to their owner. Confiscation is of a different order. Once goods or a conveyance are confiscated, their title passes to the Government. The owner gets them back only by paying a fine in lieu of con…
15 Oct 2026
When E-Way Bill Generation Is Blocked: Rule 138E
A business that falls two returns behind usually learns of it through an error message, not a notice. A dispatch clerk tries to generate an e-way bill and the portal refuses. The block is automatic and needs no order. It affects anyone who would put the business’s GSTIN…
15 Oct 2026
Refunds, step by step
IGST on exports, cash ledger balance, deemed exports, wrong-head payments, unregistered buyers, and delayed refunds.
Refund of IGST Paid on Exports
An exporter who pays IGST on a shipment files no refund application for it. The shipping bill is the application. The money arrives only if the customs system, the GST portal and the ship’s manifest all agree on the same invoice, the same shipping bill and the same GSTI…
18 Oct 2026
Refund of Excess Balance in the Cash Ledger
Money builds up in the electronic cash ledger for ordinary reasons. A challan is paid twice. Tax is deposited under the wrong head. TDS or TCS credited by customers is more than the tax due. An advance deposit is made before a liability that never arises. The balance do…
18 Oct 2026
Refunds on Deemed Exports
A manufacturer who sells raw material to an exporter holding an advance authorisation, or machinery to an EPCG holder, or goods to an export-oriented unit, has not exported anything. The goods stay in India, and GST is charged on the invoice at the normal rate. The law …
18 Oct 2026
Tax Paid Under the Wrong Head: CGST/SGST or IGST
A supplier who gets the place of supply wrong pays the right amount of tax to the wrong government. A sale treated as intra-State, with CGST and SGST, turns out to be inter-State and liable to IGST, or the other way round. The tax that should have been paid is still due…
18 Oct 2026
Excess Tax Paid, and Refunds to Unregistered Buyers
Two quite different people end up claiming the same kind of refund. The first is a registered supplier that paid more tax than it owed. It may have reported a sale twice, or applied the wrong rate, after the return was filed and could no longer be edited. The second is …
18 Oct 2026
When a Refund Is Delayed: Deficiency Memos, Withholding and Interest
The refund rules set short deadlines for the department: fifteen days to accept or reject an application as complete, seven days for a provisional refund, sixty days for the final order. Claimants who wait past those dates rarely know what the delay means. A deficiency …
18 Oct 2026
Sectors and special cases
Reverse charge, import and export of services, real estate, works contracts, GTAs, e-commerce sellers, and TDS and TCS.
Reverse Charge for Businesses
Under reverse charge, the business that receives the supply pays the tax, and it has to do work that is normally the supplier’s. It must know that the supply falls in one of the notified lists, issue an invoice to itself when the supplier is unregistered, and fix the da…
18 Oct 2026
GST on Import of Services
When a business in India buys a service from abroad, no one charges it GST. The foreign supplier is outside the Indian system, customs does not see a service, and the bank remits the fee net of nothing. The tax is still due, and the buyer pays it. Typical cases are a cl…
18 Oct 2026
Export of Services: the Five Conditions, LUT and Proof
A service sold to a foreign client is not automatically an export. Under GST it is an export only when five conditions are met together, and any one of them can fail. The place of supply may turn out to be India. The money may come in through a route the RBI has not per…
18 Oct 2026
GST for Real Estate Developers
A promoter selling flats off-plan meets GST at every stage of a project. There is the land deal, the rate on each instalment from buyers, the share of purchases bought from unregistered suppliers, and the day the completion certificate arrives. Since 1 April 2019 most o…
18 Oct 2026
Works Contracts
A contractor who builds, installs or repairs something fixed to the earth supplies both materials and labour, usually under one price. Under the old taxes that price was split between VAT and service tax, and the split was argued over for decades. GST settles the classi…
18 Oct 2026
Goods Transport Agencies: Forward or Reverse Charge
A trucking business and its customers each need to know two things: who pays the GST on a road freight bill, and at what rate. The answer depends on facts about both sides. Has the transporter issued a consignment note? Has it filed a declaration before the year began? …
18 Oct 2026
Selling Through E-Commerce Platforms
A shop that starts selling on a marketplace takes on a different set of GST rules from the same shop selling over the counter. The registration threshold can stop applying. The operator deducts an amount from every settlement, and the seller recovers it only by acting o…
18 Oct 2026
TDS and TCS in Practice: Deducting, Collecting and Claiming the Credit
A contractor working for a State department receives 98 per cent of its bill. An online seller receives its settlement less a fraction of a per cent. In both cases the missing money has been paid to the Government in the supplier’s name. It is not lost, but it does not …
18 Oct 2026
Common transactions
Gifts to employees, used vehicles and old assets, corporate guarantees, liquidated damages and notice pay, vouchers, and directors’ services.
Gifts and Perquisites to Employees
A Diwali hamper, a phone the employee keeps, a gold coin for ten years’ service, a company car under the appointment letter, club membership, health cover. Each of these reaches an employee, and GST treats them in three different ways. A benefit given under the employme…
26 Oct 2026
Selling Used Vehicles and Old Business Assets
A business that sells its old car, a five-year-old machine or a lot of used computers often assumes there is no GST, because the asset was bought for use and not for resale. That assumption is wrong. Disposing of a business asset is a supply, and tax is due on it. What …
26 Oct 2026
Corporate Guarantees Between Related Parties
A holding company signs a guarantee so that its subsidiary can borrow from a bank. Nobody invoices anybody, and no money changes hands. Since 26 October 2023, GST has a specific answer for this case. The guarantee is a supply of services by the guarantor to the borrower…
26 Oct 2026
Liquidated Damages, Notice Pay and Penalties
A contractor finishes late, and the employer deducts liquidated damages from the final bill. An employee leaves without serving notice, and the company recovers a month’s salary. A customer’s cheque bounces, and the supplier charges a fine. Each of these is money paid b…
26 Oct 2026
Vouchers and Gift Cards
A retailer sells gift cards. A distributor buys vouchers from a brand at a discount and sells them to companies, which hand them to employees and customers. Some cards are never redeemed. For seven years the law gave vouchers a time-of-supply rule of their own, and tax …
26 Oct 2026
Services by Directors
A company pays its independent directors sitting fees and an annual commission. It pays its managing director a salary, and perhaps a separate professional fee for advice outside that role. Its promoter-director has guaranteed the company’s bank loans. GST treats each o…
26 Oct 2026
Worked examples
The rules applied to particular facts.
GST worked examples: intra-State supplies (CGST with SGST or UTGST)
Worked examples of intra-State supplies: goods and services within a State, Union territories, bill-to-ship-to, composite supplies, residential construction, restaurant supplies through apps, and transfers between registrations.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: inter-State supplies and IGST
Worked examples of inter-State supplies: goods and services across States, branch transfers, property in two States, goods transport agencies, air tickets and post-paid mobile services.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: imports, exports and SEZ supplies
Worked examples on imports, exports of goods and services, SEZ supplies, merchant exporters, import of services, high-seas sales and deemed exports.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: reverse charge
Worked examples of reverse charge: goods transport agencies, advocates, sponsorship, directors, rent from unregistered landlords, and real-estate promoters, with the 2024–25 changes.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: e-commerce operators (TCS and section 9(5))
Worked examples on e-commerce: tax collected at source by marketplaces, and cab rides, restaurant meals, holiday homes and home services where the platform pays the tax.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: composition scheme
Worked examples on the composition scheme for traders, restaurants and service providers, and what happens when turnover crosses the limit.
4 Oct 2026
Compensation cess after GST 2.0: what ended and what replaced it
How GST compensation cess ended — on most goods from 22.09.2025 and on tobacco and pan masala from 01.02.2026 — with before-and-after examples for aerated drinks, coal and cars.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: OIDAR and cross-border digital services
Worked examples on digital services: foreign streaming to consumers, cloud services to businesses, IT exports by subsidiaries, and intermediaries after the 2026 change.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: place of supply in multi-State and cross-border cases
Worked examples on place of supply: hotel bills covering two States, leased circuits, bill-to-ship-to across States, events, and repairs of goods brought from abroad.
4 Oct 2026
GST worked examples: refunds, input tax credit and correcting errors
Worked examples on tax paid under the wrong head, inverted-duty and export refunds, credit on buildings after Safari Retreats, and correcting GSTR-1 errors.
4 Oct 2026