Beginning on August 1, companies with annual revenue of above Rs 5 crore will be required to provide electronic or e-invoices for B2B transactions.
Currently, all B2B transactions must create an electronic invoice for companies with a turnover of at least Rs 10 crore.
The finance ministry announced a lower bar for e-invoicing in a notice dated May 10. As of August 1, any taxpayer with a revenue above Rs 5 crore must generate electronic invoices for business-to-business purchases.
With this news, the scope of MSMEs under e-invoicing will be enlarged, and they will need to adopt e-invoicing, according to Mahesh Jaising, Partner Leader Indirect Tax at Deloitte India.
“For businesses, e-invoicing is a boon rather than a bane because compliant suppliers ensure proper input tax credit flow and lessen the churn associated with credit issues,” Jaising said.
E-invoicing has been implemented gradually, according to Rajat Mohan, senior partner at AMRG & Associates, which has decreased interruptions, enhanced compliance, and generated income.
E-invoicing was once made available to big businesses with annual revenue of more over 500 crore rupees, but after three years the cap was decreased to 5 crore rupees.
“Including the MSME sector in the e-invoicing regime would benefit the overall business ecosystem by lowering costs, rationalizing errors, ensuring faster invoice processing, and also limiting commercial disputes over time,” Mohan said.
E-invoicing for business-to-business (B2B) transactions was made essential under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) legislation for enterprises with a turnover of above Rs 500 crore starting on October 1, 2020, and later expanded to those with a revenue of over Rs 100 crore starting on January 1, 2021.
Companies that had a turnover of more than Rs 50 crore started producing B2B e-invoices from April 1, 2021. from April 1, 2022, the barrier was reduced to Rs 20 crore. The barrier was further reduced to Rs 10 crore as of October 1, 2022.
To prevent any disputes regarding the use of input tax credit (ITC), EY Tax Partner Saurabh Agarwal advised the sector to review its vendor masters and make sure that, as of August 2023, every vendor providing goods or services and exceeding the threshold turnover of Rs 5 crore must issue an electronic invoice.
