GST – Registration Procedure

Although it has been five years since the various erstwhile indirect taxes were subsumed under the Goods and Service Tax Act, 2017 with effect from 1st June 2017, there have been a number of updates and changes made by the GST Council since then which makes the Act as good as new. This post, the first in a series of posts on Goods and Services Tax (GST), will serve as a comprehensive guide for all things pertaining to the registration procedure on the GST portal.

Eligibility (Section 22 to 24):

1. Aggregate Turnover:

All service providers whose aggregate turnover exceeds Rs. 20 lakhs in a financial year are mandatorily required to register under the Act. However the threshold limit for Special Category States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand) is Rs. 10 lakhs.

Persons engaged in the exclusive supply of goods whose aggregate turnover exceeds Rs. 40 lakhs in a financial year are mandatorily required to register under the Act. The threshold limit for Special Category States is Rs. 20 lakhs.

2. All persons engaged in inter-state supply of goods and/or services shall have to mandatorily register under the Act irrespective of their turnover.

3. All persons who are liable to pay taxes under the Reverse Charge Mechanism shall have to register under the Act.

4. Any individual undertaking supply of goods, services seasonally or intermittently through a temporary stall or shop must apply for GST as ‘Casual Taxable Person’ irrespective of the annual aggregate turnover.

5. A non-resident taxable person, i.e. a person residing outside India and making a taxable supply in India is liable to register under the Act.

6. All e-commerce aggregators and all persons supplying goods or services through an e-commerce aggregator shall have to apply for GST registration.

7. All agents of a supplier and input service distributors (ISD) shall have to apply for GST registration.

8. All persons supplying online information and database access or retrieval services from a place outside India to a person in India shall have to apply for GST registration.

Types of Registration on the GST Portal:

There are many types of registrations available on the GST portal.

Normal Taxpayer:

This category of GST registration applies to taxpayers operating a business in India. Normal Taxpayers are not required to maintain a deposit and are also provided with unlimited validity date.

Composition Taxpayer:

The GST Composition Scheme allows taxpayers to pay GST at a fixed rate of turnover. This scheme can be opted by any taxpayer whose annual turnover is less than Rs. 1.5 crore. In case of North-Eastern states and Himachal Pradesh, the limit is now Rs. 75 lakh. However, the taxpayer would not be allowed to claim the input tax credit under this scheme.

Casual Taxable Person:

Individuals who wish to set up a seasonal shop or stall can opt for this category. The individual must deposit an advance amount that is equal to the expected GST liability during the time the stall or seasonal shop is operational. The duration of the GST Registration under this category is 3 months and it can be extended or renewed.

Non-Resident Taxable Person:

Similar to a Casual Taxable Person, one must pay a deposit equal to the expected GST liability during the time the GST registration is active. The duration for this type of GST registration is usually 3 months, but it can be extended or renewed at the type of expiry.

Fees charged for GST registration:

There are no charges levied to complete the GST registration process. However there are penalties for not registering under GST once the entity has crossed the turnover limit or is mandatorily liable to be registered.

Documents required for GST registration:

• PAN card of the individual/ entity.

• Proof of constitution of business (e.g. Certificate of Incorporation for companies).

• Aadhaar card of the individual/ partners/ promoters/ directors.

• Latest address proof of individual/ partners/ promoters/ directors not older than 3 months.

• Passport sized recent photograph of individual/ partners/ promoters/ directors.

• Proof of appointment of Authorized signatory (e.g. Letter of Authorization, Board Resolution).

• Proof of principal place of business (Latest electricity bill not older than 3 months, property tax receipt, legal ownership document or in case of rented property - a lease and license agreement).

• Cancelled cheque or latest bank account statement or first page of bank passbook.

• Digital signature of authorized signatory.

GST Registration Process

Step 1: Go to the GST portal at https://reg.gst.gov.in/registration/

Step 2: Generate a Temporary Reference Number (TRN) by filing in the mandatory fields and completing the OTP validation.

Step 3: Once the TRN is successfully generated, begin the GST registration procedure. Log in to the GST portal with the newly generated TRN and complete the OTP verification.

Step 4: Submit the valid business information and upload the relevant documents across the various tabs on the portal. The tabs are as follows:

Business Details – One must enter the legal name, trade name, constitution of business and reason to obtain registration.

Promoter/ Partners information – One must fill in the personal details of the proprietor, partners, promoters and directors. Details of up to 10 Promoters or Partners can be submitted in a GST registration application.

Authorized Signatory - An authorized signatory is a person nominated by the promoters of the company. The nominated person shall hold responsibility for filing GST returns of the company. Further, the person shall also maintain the necessary compliance of the company. The authorized signatory will have full access to the GST portal. The person shall undertake a wide range of transactions on behalf of the promoters.

Principal Place of Business – One must enter the address and nature of premises along with the official contact details of the registered office.

Additional Place of Business – If the applicant has any additional place of business, details of the same are to be mentioned under this tab.

Goods and Services - In this section, the applicant must provide details of the top 5 goods and services supplied. For goods supplied, provide the HSN code and for services, provide SAC code.

Bank Accounts – One must enter the number of bank accounts held by the applicant and the details of each account such as account number, IFSC code and type of account.

Step 5: In this step, verify the details submitted in the application before submission. Once verification is complete, select the name of the authorized signatory and digitally sign the application using Digital Signature Certificate (DSC)/ E-Signature or Electronic Verification Code (EVC). Digitally signing using DSC is mandatory in case of LLP and Companies.

Step 6: On signing the application, the success message is displayed. The acknowledgement shall be received in the registered e-mail address and mobile phone number. Application Reference Number (ARN) receipt is sent to the e-mail address and mobile phone number. Using the GST ARN Number, the status of the application can be tracked on the portal.

Once the GST application is approved by the officer, the registered user can start filing the returns on the portal which will be discussed in depth in the next post.

This blog post has been authored by Heer Kamdar, member of the LEC Blog team and law student at Jindal Global Law School.