As expected, and previously announced by the Secretary of Finance in India, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has now formally issued a Notification stating that e-invoicing will become mandatory for taxpayers with a turnover of 100 Cr. rupees or more from 1 January 2021.
Mandate scope expanded
On 30 July 2020, the CBIC changed the threshold for the mandatory e-invoicing from 100 Cr rupees to 500 Cr. This was largely due to the government being cautious to ensure the technical stability and performance of the e-invoicing platform because taxpayers with a threshold of 100 Cr. rupees had already been testing their systems as part of the voluntary period that started in February 2020. Even though certain taxpayers were removed from the scope through this change in July, it was expected that the excluded taxpayers would once again be included in the scope once the e-invoicing system had proven to be stable over a certain period of time.
After the successful initial kick-off, the Indian authorities have now expanded the scope of the mandate to cover those taxpayers that were removed from the initial scope. 1 January 2021 is now the big day for those meeting or exceeding the threshold of 100 Cr. rupees.
Looking ahead
With these latest developments, it’s inevitable that India’s continuous transaction controls invoicing system will be expanded further and become mandatory for more taxpayers fairly soon. Furthermore, the Secretary of Finance hinted about the next deadline being 1 April 2021 for all taxpayers in the country. Even though this deadline appears ambitious, the path that India is following is ermined and therefore it’s likely this will happen.
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