The GST Council, in its 35th meeting, has decided to implement a system of e-invoicing, which will be mandatorily implemented from 1 April 2020 for taxpayers with turnover over Rs 100 Crore. The aggregate turnover will include the turnover of all GSTINs under a single PAN, across India.

E-invoicing is the submission of an already generated standard invoice on a common portal. Thus it automates multi-purpose reporting with a one-time input of invoice details.

Businesses will have the following benefits by using e-invoice initiated by GSTN:

1) E-invoice resolves and plugs a major gap in data reconciliation under GST to reduce mismatch errors.
2) E-invoices created on one software can be read by another, allowing interoperability and help reduce data entry errors.
3) Real-time tracking of invoices prepared by the supplier is enabled by e-invoice.
4) Backward integration and automation of the tax return filing process – the relevant details of the invoices would be auto-populated in the various returns, especially for generating the part-A of e-way bills.
5) Faster availability of genuine input tax credit.
6) Lesser possibility of audits/surveys by the tax authorities since the information they require is available at a transaction level.

It will help in curbing tax evasion in the following ways:

1) Tax authorities will have access to transactions as they take place in real-time since the e-invoice will have to be compulsorily generated through the GST portal.
2) There will be less scope for the manipulation of invoices since the invoice gets generated prior to carrying out a transaction.
3) It will reduce the chances of fake GST invoices and the only genuine input tax credit can be claimed as all invoices need to be generated through the GST portal. Since the input credit can be matched with output tax details, it becomes easier for GSTN to track fake tax credit claims.