In a major relief for GST taxpayers, the government today announced to postpone the initial phase of implementation of e-invoice till November 2020. The government had earlier notified that taxpayers having an aggregate turnover of Rs 500 crore and above would be required to issue e-invoice from 1 October 2020. It has been reported that even after more than nine months of the first notification, some of such taxpayers are still not ready, hence it has been decided that the invoices issued by such taxpayers during October 2020 without following the prescribed manner shall be deemed to be valid and there will be no penalty for such non-adherence to provisions, the government said.
The penalty is subject to waived if the Invoice Reference Number (IRN) for such invoices is obtained from the Invoice Reference Portal (IRP) within 30 days of the date of the invoice, according to the Ministry of Finance. In December 2019, the government had prescribed that the GST Taxpayers having an aggregate annual turnover of more than Rs 100 crore in any preceding financial year will be required to issue e-invoice for all the Business to Business (B2B) supplies. It was also mandated that a B2B invoice or an export invoice issued by such a taxpayer, in any other manner, shall not be treated as an invoice.
Source : Times of India