Companies with over Rs 5 crore annual turnover will soon have to generate GST e-invoices for B2B transactions: Official

GST-registered businesses with annual turnover of more than Rs 5 crore will soon have to generate electronic invoices for B2B transactions, a top official said on Thursday.

Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Chairman Vivek Johri said the GST Council, comprising finance ministers of the Centre and states, had decided to implement it in a phased manner and with e-invoices being generated, for every B2B (Business-to-Business) transaction, invoice matching by tax authorities would not be required under Goods and Services Tax (GST).

"We started with a very high threshold and soon we are going to have all taxpayers with an annual turnover of more than Rs 5 crore having to generate e-invoices for their B2B part of business. With the launch of e-invoice, we don't need invoice matching," Johri said at a event organised by industry body PHDCCI here. Currently, businesses with turnover of over Rs 20 crore will have to generate e-invoices for B2B transactions.

"E-invoicing is revolution and there is no other country that has adopted this. The phasing has been very gradual. We didn't want to burden the taxpayer community with e-invoices... we (Council) knew it cannot be done in one stroke, we started in a phased manner and gradually brought it down," Johri said.