Under GST Era, every entity whether it is proprietor or company are facing issues on various concepts of GST registration. This articles try to highlight the different facets of GST Registration.

As per section 22 of GST Act, every supplier is liable to take registration from where he makes a taxable supply of Goods/Services/both if aggregate turnover in a financial year exceeds threshold limit as given in the below table.

Aggregate Turnover Limit from 1st April 2019 for supplier of Goods

Aggregate Turnover Limit from 1st April 2019 for supplier of Service or both “Goods and Services”

Where to Register ?

GST is a destination based tax. The question arise in the mind of supplier is that which is the proper state for obtaining registration. It is mentioned in the section that registration is required in the state from where supplier make taxable supplies. It is not required in the state to which taxable supplies are made in-spite of having destination based tax.

The aforesaid threshold limit is important to understand in case of Entity having business place in normal state say Gujarat and branch in special category state say Meghalaya. Turnover of goods in Gujarat is Rs. 12,00,000 and in Meghalaya is Rs. 9,00,000. Since the entity exceeds the limit of Rs. 20,00,000, registration is required in both states. Here, threshold becomes Rs. 20,00,000 and not Rs. 40,00,000.

What is Aggregate Turnover in GST?

The “aggregate turnover” is the aggregate value of below supplies having same PAN to be computed on all India basis.

• All taxable supplies of goods and services
• All Inter-state supplies of person having the same PAN
• Exempt supplies of goods and services (exempt supplies include NIL rated supply, supply exempted u/s 11, non-taxable supply i.e. alcoholic liquor for human consumption and articles listed in section 9(2))
• Export of goods or services or both

However, the aggregate turnover does not include the value of inward supplies liable to reverse charge under GST and Central tax, State tax, Union territory tax, Integrated tax and cess.

Compulsory Registration

Section 24 of CGST Act enumerates situations where GST registration is mandatory irrespective of exemption threshold. These categories of persons are required to compulsorily get registered under GST as per below list

1. Inter-state suppliers
2. Casual Taxable persons
3. Persons taxable under the reverse charge basis
4. person who are required to pay tax under sub-section (5) of section 9.
5. Non-resident taxable persons
6. Persons required to deduct TDS under GST
7. Input Service Distributors
8. Persons making supply on behalf of other registered taxable person whether as an Agent or Principal.
9. Every E-commerce Operator who is required to collect tax at source.
10. Suppliers who supply goods through E-commerce operator who is liable to collect tax at source.
11. Online Service Providers providing service from outside India to a non-registered person in India.

Exemption from GST Registration

Going through GST Act, various notifications and circulars, Government has come out with exemption form GST registration as per below list:

• It may be noted that vide Notification 10/2017–Integrated Tax, 13th October 2017, persons making inter-States supply of services and having turnover not exceeding Rs. 20 lakhs have been exemptedfrom obtaining compulsory registration. Therefore, only persons who make inter-State supply of goods have to compulsorily obtain registration irrespective of the aggregate turnover.
• The person engaged exclusively in business of supplying goods or services or both that are not liable to tax or are wholly exempted is not required to take registration.
• Supplier of services through e‐commerce platform are also not required to obtain compulsory registration if aggregate turnover does not exceed threshold limit.
• The supplier of Handicraft goods (i.e. specified in notification) engaged in interstate supply is exempted from registration except their turnover exceeds threshold limits.
• Casual taxable persons engaged in interstate supply of handicraft goods if the aggregate turnover does not exceed threshold limits.
• The person engaged in supplying taxable goods or services or both and the total tax on such supplies is required to be paid by the recipient of goods or services or both under reverse charge mechanism.
• An agriculturist is not liable for registration only to the extent of supply of produce out of cultivation of land.

Registration of different Business Vertical

When GST was introduced, there was a concept of “business vertical” which has been deleted. Before the amendment only a person, having multiple business verticals in a particular State or Union Territory, had an option to seek separate registration for each such business vertical. Therefore, previously definition of business vertical is to be satisfied.

Now an amendment has been made u/s 25(2) of the CGST Act, 2017 to provide that in cases where a person is having multiple places of business within the same State or Union Territory, he can also apply for a separate registrationfor eachsuch place of business subject to certain conditions. Hence it will now be possible to seek different registration for each place of business, even within the same State, even if each such location carries out the same nature of business. Taxpayers can now opt for separate registrations in a State based on location for each of the business though they are in similar line of business.