GST: FAQs Series 18 (GST: Payment of Taxes)

GST Payment of Taxes

Q 1. What are the Payments to be made in GST regime?

Ans. In the GST regime, for any intra-state supply, taxes to be paid are the Central GST (CGST), going into the account of the Central Government) and the State/UT GST (SGST, going into the account of the concerned State Government).

For any inter-state supply, tax to be paid is Integrated GST (IGST) which will have components of both CGST and SGST.

In addition, certain categories of registered persons will be required to pay to the government account Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) and Tax Collected at Source (TCS). In addition, wherever applicable, Interest, Penalty, Fees and any other payment will also be required to be made.

Q 2. Who is liable to pay GST?

Ans. In general, the supplier of goods or services is liable to pay GST. However, in specified cases like imports and other notified supplies, the liability may be cast on the recipient under the reverse charge mechanism. Further, in some notified cases of intra-state supply of services, the liability to pay GST may be cast on e-commerce operators through which such services are supplied. Also Government Departments making payments to vendors above a specified limit [2.5 lakh under one contract as per S.51(1)(d)] are required to deduct tax (TDS) and E-commerce operators are required to collect tax (TCS) on the net value [i.e. aggregate value of taxable supplies of goods and/or services but excluding such value of services on which the operator is made liable to pay GST under Section 9(5) of the CGST Act, 2017] of supplies made through them and deposit it with the Government.

Q 3. When does liability to pay GST arises?

Ans. Liability to pay arises at the time of supply of Goods as explained in Section 12 and at the time of supply of services as explained in Section 13.

The time is generally the earliest of one of the three events, namely receiving payment, issuance of invoice or completion of supply. Different situations envisaged and different tax points have been explained in the aforesaid sections.

Q 4. What are the main features of GST payment process?

Ans. The payment processes under GST Act(s) have the following features:

•Electronically generated challan from GSTN Common Portal in all modes of payment and no use of manually prepared challan;

•Facilitation for the tax payer by providing hassle free, anytime, anywhere mode of payment of tax;

• Convenience of making payment online;

• Logical tax collection data in electronic format;

• Faster remittance of tax revenue to the Government Account;

• Paperless transactions;

• Speedy Accounting and reporting;

• Electronic reconciliation of all receipts;

• Simplified procedure for banks

• Warehousing of Digital Challan.


Q 5. How can payment be done?

Ans. Payment can be done by the following methods:

(i) Through debit of Credit Ledger of the tax payer maintained on the Common Portal – ONLY Tax can be paid. Interest, Penalty and Fees cannot be paid by debit in the credit ledger. Tax payers shall be allowed to take credit of taxes paid on inputs (input tax credit) and utilize the same for payment of output tax. However, no input tax credit on account of CGST shall be utilized towards payment of SGST and vice versa. The credit of IGST would be permitted to be utilized for payment of IGST, CGST and SGST in that order.

(ii) In cash by debit in the Cash Ledger of the tax payer maintained on the Common Portal. Money can be deposited in the Cash Ledger by different modes, namely, E-Payment (Internet Banking, Credit Card, Debit Card); Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)/ National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT); Over the Counter Payment in branches of Banks Authorized to accept deposit of GST.


Q 6. When is payment of taxes to be made by the Supplier?

Ans. Payment of taxes by the normal tax payer is to be done on monthly basis by the 20th of the succeeding month. Cash payments will be first deposited in the Cash Ledger and the tax payer shall debit the ledger while making payment in the monthly returns and shall reflect the relevant debit entry number in his return. As mentioned earlier, payment can also be debited from the Credit Ledger. Payment of taxes for the month of March shall be paid by the 20th of April. Composition tax payers will need to pay tax on quarterly basis.

Q 7. Whether time limit for payment of tax can be extended or paid in monthly installments?

Ans. No, this is not permitted in case of self-assessed liability. In other cases, competent authority has been empowered to extend the time period or allow payment in instalments. (Section 80 of the CGST/SGST Act).

Q 8. What happens if the taxable person files the return but does not make payment of tax?

Ans. In such cases, the return is not considered as a valid return. Section 2(117) defines a valid return to mean a return furnished under sub-section (1) of section 39 on which self-assessed tax has been paid in full. It is only the valid return that would be used for allowing input tax credit (ITC) to the recipient. In other words, unless the supplier has paid the entire self-assessed tax and filed his return and the recipient has filed his return, the ITC of the recipient would not be confirmed.

Q 9. Which date is considered as date of deposit of the tax dues – Date of presentation of cheque or Date of payment or Date of credit of amount in the account of government?

Ans. It is the date of credit to the Government account.

Q 10. What are E-Ledgers?

Ans. Electronic Ledgers or E-Ledgers are statements of cash and input tax credit in respect of each registered taxpayer. In addition, each taxpayer shall also have an electronic tax liability register. Once a taxpayer is registered on Common Portal (GSTN), two e-ledgers (Cash &Input Tax Credit ledger) and an electronic tax liability register will be automatically opened and displayed on his dash board at all times.

Refer extract of Section 49 (Payment of tax, interest, penalty and other amounts) of CGST Act, 2017 on following link:

http://gstindia1.blogspot.in/p/extract-of-section-49-central-goods-and.html

Disclaimer:

This FAQ on GST compiled by NACEN and vetted by the Source Trainers is based on the CGST/SGST/UTGST/IGSTAct(s). This FAQ is for training and academic purposes only.

The information in this blogger is reproduced from FAQ on GST publised by CBEC updated on 31 March 2017 and is not intended to be treated as legal ad vice or opinion. For greater details, you are requested to refer to the respective CGST/SGST/UTGST/IGST Acts.

The FAQs refer to CGST and SGST Acts as CGST/SGST as CGST Act and SGST Act are identical in most of the provisions. CGST Act has been introduced in the Parliament. The SGST Acts will be passed by respective state legislatures. A few provisions may be specific to state and may not be in CGST Act.

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