Recent Amendments in Provisions of Electronic Invoice under GST

Recent Amendments Affecting The Provisions Of The Electronic Invoice Under Goods And Service Tax (GST) Law

Vide notification no. 74/2018 – Central Tax dated 31st December, 2018, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs introduced the Central Goods and Service Tax (Fourteenth Amendment) Rules, 2018. The said amendments have been made effective from the date of their publication in the official gazette.

With the introduction of the 14th Amendment to the Central Goods and Service Tax Rules, there were various amendments being undertaken with regard to the electronic invoice. The amendments were done by way of adding up of the proviso to various relevant rules and the same is explained below in a tabular format –

RULE	RULE RELEVANT TO	PROVISO ADDED AFTER	RELEVANT GIST OF PROVISO
46	Tax invoice	After 4th proviso	There is no requirement of signature / digital signature of the supplier / authorized representative in case of issuance of an ‘electronic invoice’.
49	Bill of Supply	After 2nd proviso	There is no requirement of signature / digital signature of the supplier / authorized representative in case of issuance of an ‘electronic bill of supply’.
54	Tax invoice in special cases (relating to an insurer / banking company / financial institution / non-banking financial company)	After sub-rule (2)	There is no requirement of signature / digital signature of the supplier / authorized representative in case of issuance of a ‘consolidated tax invoice or any other document in lieu thereof’.
54	Tax invoice in special cases (relating to supplying of passenger transport service)	After sub-rule (4)	There is no requirement of signature / digital signature of the supplier / authorized representative in case of issuance of a ‘ticket’.

It is important to note here that all the above amendments require that the issuance of tax invoice (rule 46), bill of supply (rule 49), consolidated tax invoice or ticket (rule 54) needs to be in accordance with the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

[Written by CA Sandeep Kanoi for Tax Guru]