GST Forms & Compliance for E-Commerce

One of the major impacts of GST on businesses across the country, has been the increase in compliance activity, and e-commerce is no exception. On one hand, e-commerce operators (such as Amazon) will need to report all supplies made by the e-commerce seller, while on the other hand, the sales reported by the e-commerce operator will need to be matched by the sales declared by the e-commerce seller at the end of every month. Any difference will need to be added to the turnover of the seller and consequently be liable to discharge GST on any such additional turnover, and the entire mechanism will be managed via the efficient and timely filing of the various GST forms.
 
Not just this, but e-commerce operators will need to report the HSN / SAC code of the supplies being made, and the applicable rates at an item level, individually. This will require them to map every sale done by the e-commerce seller and ensure that TCS is collected at the right value. Thankfully, TCS has been deferred till March 2018, till further notification, but that does not nullify the fact that for a seller dealing in e-commerce, GST compliance in general and its implementation in specific is a tad cumbersome,
What is also bound to increase the challenges and costs for compliance in the e-commerce scheme of things, is the fact that e-commerce operators will need to register in each State and file the reports separately on a monthly basis – and in case an e-commerce operator does not have an establishment in a State, any person representing the e-commerce operator will be liable to pay tax.
In such circumstances, if you are a seller on an online platform, you need to be on top of your compliance needs, and be conversant about the various GST forms you need to deal with, in order to file GST compliant returns.

GST Forms for E-Commerce
The following are the various GST forms, and the various actionable which you need to be aware of, if you are involved in e-commerce:

GST Form

Due Date

E-Commerce Entity

Actionable

GSTR 8

10th of the next month

Operator

Furnish gross value of supplies made through the platform and value of supplies returned, by each e-commerce supplier. The difference between the supplies made and supplies returned will be the net amount liable for TCS. For registered taxable persons, provide invoice-wise details in Table 3A and for unregistered persons, provide aggregate value of supplies in Table 3B.

GSTR 1

10th of the next month

Supplier

Furnish all outward supplies attracting TCS, operator wise and rate wise for the following:
 
·        Registered persons in Table 4C.
·        Inter-State supplies to unregistered persons, where the invoice value is more than INR 2.5 Lakhs, in Table 5B.
·        Intra-State supplies to unregistered persons in Table 7A (2).
·        Inter-State supplies to unregistered persons, where the invoice value does not exceed INR 2.5 Lakhs, in Table 7B (2).
Amendments to furnished details of outward supplies made to unregistered persons in previous tax periods, if any, need to be made in Table 10A (1) for Intra-State supplies and Table 10B (1) for Inter-State, operator wise and rate wise.

GSTR 2A

11th of the next month

Supplier

Go through the auto-generated form, which will include the auto-populated details of TCS credit accrued in Table 7B, based on the TCS collected by the operator in the previous month via the GSTR 8 form.

GSTR 2

15th of the next month

Supplier

Furnish the details of TCS collected by the operator in Table 9B.

GST MIS 3

On or before the last date of the month in which matching has been carried out

Supplier

Check the electronically generated form containing any discrepancy in the details furnished by operator and declared by you, and make suitable rectifications in the statement of outward supplies.

GST MIS 4

On or before the last date of the month in which matching has been carried out

Operator

Check the electronically generated form containing any discrepancy in the details furnished by you and declared by supplier, and make suitable rectifications.

GSTR 3

20th of the next month

Supplier

Where the discrepancy is not rectified, an amount to the extent of discrepancy shall be added to the output tax liability of the supplier in this form, for the month succeeding the month in which the details of discrepancy are made available.

GSTR 9B

31st December of next Financial Year

Operator

Annual Return

Given, that TCS has been deferred for the time being till March 2018, e-commerce operators as well as suppliers are expected to breathe easy for a few months. However, it is always advisable to be prepared for the impending compliance activity, rather than struggle later, to ensure that the business continues to flow smoothly.