Government defers 7-day time limit for e-invoice reporting

NEW DELHI: The government has deferred by three months the imposition of a 7-day time limit for reporting old e-invoices on the e-invoice portals for GST taxpayers with an aggregate turnover of Rs100 crore or more. The new rule was supposed to be implemented by 1 May 2023. However, given the operational difficulties faced by the taxpayers, the GST authorities have decided to defer it.

e-invoice is a system in which business-to-business (B2B) invoices are electronically authenticated by GST Network, the entity that provided the IT backbone for the administration of GST. Under the e-invoicing system, an identification number is issued against every invoice by the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP) to be managed by the GST Network (GSTN).

Experts say that the extension of the deadline was expected as many businesses have not yet integrated their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with real-time reporting into the Invoice Registration Portal (IRP). “The earlier requirement had put an additional burden on such businesses to upload their invoices in the IRP portal, leading to compliance challenges and operational difficulties.

The extension of the time limit to report invoices to the IRP will provide these businesses with the necessary time to streamline their reporting processes, ensuring effective implementation going forward,” says Ankur Gupta- Practice Leader of Indirect tax at SW India. The government wanted to impose the 7-day reporting limit to ensure timely compliance. The 7-day restriction will apply to all documents for which IRN is generated. Once issued, the credit/debit note will also have to be reported within 7 days of issue.