Hospital approval under Income Tax rules: employer-paid medical expenses for listed conditions excluded from perquisite taxation.
Approval is accorded to M/s Big Hospital for the purposes of sub clause (b) of clause (ii) of the proviso to clause (viii) of sub section (2) of section 17 of the Income tax Act, 1961, under Rule 3A(1) and 3A(2). Employer payments for medical treatment of an employee's family at the approved hospital for specified diseases and ailments will not be treated as a perquisite for sections 15, 16 and 17, subject to the enumerated disease categories, exclusion of Indian systems of medicine and homeopathy, non transferability, inspection rights, continued compliance, and withdrawal on misrepresentation.

Return filing deadline under section 139 clarifies eligibility for section 11 exemption for registered trusts when timely filed.
The insertion of clause (ba) in sub section (1) of section 12A requires that a person in receipt of income chargeable to tax must furnish the return of income within the time allowed under section 139 for a trust registered under section 12AA to avail exemption under section 11; returns required by sub section (4A) must therefore be filed within the time allowed under section 139 and assessments denying exemption solely for belated filing should be rectified.

Input tax credit priority: integrated tax must be exhausted before central or state credits, with portal transition allowed.
The amended NGST framework mandates that integrated tax input credit be completely exhausted before any central tax or state/union territory tax credit may be utilised. A rules provision allows integrated tax credit to be applied toward central and state/UT tax liabilities in any order or proportion subject to mandatory exhaustion of integrated credit first. Taxpayers may continue to follow the existing common portal functionality until the new order of utilization is implemented, and are urged to publicise the clarification and report implementation difficulties.

Transfer of input tax credit on proprietor's death: transferee may claim unutilised credit after prescribed electronic filing.
Where a sole proprietor dies and the business is continued by a transferee or successor, unutilised input tax credit in the electronic credit ledger may be transferred to the transferee. The transferee must obtain registration effective from the date of transfer and indicate death of the proprietor; legal heirs may seek cancellation of the deceased's registration and must supply the transferee's GSTIN. The transferee must file the prescribed electronic request to transfer unutilised credit before applying for cancellation; upon acceptance the credit is credited to the transferee's electronic credit ledger. Transferor and transferee are jointly and severally liable for tax, interest and penalty arising from the transferor.

Registration verification: Fresh GST registrations may be rejected if prior registration was cancelled and revocation not sought.
Proper officers must verify whether applicants seeking a new GST registration on the same PAN had prior registrations cancelled for continued statutory violations and whether they have applied for revocation; failure to apply for revocation where cancellation grounds persist shall be treated as a deficiency and may warrant rejection of the fresh registration after portal-based comparison of prior and current application data and consideration of explanations furnished.

Refund of Unutilized Input Tax Credit - portal workaround permits alternative filing and electronic credit ledger debit for processing.
Provides procedural clarifications for refund claims of unutilized ITC affected by lapsing notifications and portal validation: taxpayers who reversed required ITC in GSTR 3B but face portal limits may file RFD 01A under "any other" for the same period with full supporting documents; the proper officer will calculate admissible refund per refund rules, require electronic credit ledger debit via DRC 03, then issue RFD 06 and RFD 05. Those yet to reverse may use DRC 03; late reversals attract interest from the original due date until reversal. Merchant exporters and cases involving re credited ITC after deficiency memos follow analogous filing and processing steps.

Inter-state supply: IGST applies to trading of Priority Sector Lending Certificates, with credit where CGST/SGST already paid.
Supply of Priority Sector Lending Certificates (PSLC) between banks on the RBI e Kuber portal is treated as a supply of goods in the course of inter State trade or commerce, making IGST payable on such transactions; however, banks that have already paid CGST/SGST for a supply need not pay IGST for that supply.

Treatment of sales promotion schemes under GST clarifies when free samples, discounts, and buy one get one offers affect taxability and ITC.
Goods or services supplied without consideration do not constitute supply under GST except where Schedule I applies; ITC is disallowed for inputs, input services and capital goods used for gifts or free samples unless distribution amounts to a supply under Schedule I. Buy one get one offers are treated as multiple supplies for a single price and taxability depends on whether the arrangement is a composite or mixed supply; ITC is available for inputs used in such offers. Invoice discounts and pre established volume discounts may be excluded from taxable value if statutory conditions are met; secondary post supply discounts via credit notes do not qualify for exclusion and do not affect ITC availability for the supplier.

Inter State characterization of warehoused goods: one time deeming treats central and state tax paid as compliance if equal to integrated tax.
Supplies of goods in customs bonded warehouses were inter State supplies but, due to portal limitations, were reported as intra State and taxed as central and state tax. As a one time exception, suppliers who paid central tax and state tax during the period in question will be deemed to have complied with tax payment obligations provided the sum of central and state tax paid equals the integrated tax due on those supplies.

Place of supply details must appear on invoices for inter-State supplies to ensure tax accrues to the consuming State.
Registered persons making inter-State supplies must specify the place of supply together with the name of the State on tax invoices to ensure tax accrues to the consuming State; the place of supply for goods and services should be determined with reference to the integrated GST place-of-supply provisions when issuing invoices for inter-State transactions.

Reporting of inter state supplies to unregistered persons is required to enable IGST apportionment; non reporting attracts penalties.
Registered suppliers must report inter State supplies to unregistered persons, composition taxable persons and UIN holders in Table 3.2 of FORM GSTR 3B and record inter State supplies to unregistered persons in Table 7B of FORM GSTR 1, including place of supply. Information in Table 3.2 governs IGST apportionment to the State of supply; non reporting causes non apportionment, data mismatches and attracts penal action under the TNGST Act.

Realization of export proceeds in Indian Rupee permitted where RBI allows, enabling LUT acceptance for exports in INR.
With effect from 01.02.2019, the circulars are amended to permit realization of export proceeds in Indian rupee where RBI permits and to allow acceptance of a Letter of Undertaking for exports and SEZ supplies regardless of currency subject to RBI rules; to modify job-work rules by applying the time periods specified under the job-work provision, restating principal's record-keeping and deemed-supply liabilities, clarifying valuation of job-work services, and linking job-worker registration to statutory turnover thresholds; to require recovery of inadmissible transitional credits via FORM GST DRC-03/DRC-07 rather than GSTR-3B; and to implement suspension of registration while preserving the final return obligation.

GST on banking services: banks liable for tax on service charges collected via business facilitators or correspondents.
The banking company is the service provider where services are rendered through a Business Facilitator or Business Correspondent under RBI guidelines, and is liable to pay GST on the entire service charge or fee levied on customers irrespective of collection through BF/BC. Exemption for services relating to accounts in a rural branch applies only where the BF/BC services are classifiable under the prescribed service classification and relate to a branch designated rural in accordance with RBI guidelines.

GST exemption for educational institution services: food and beverages supplied by the institution to students and staff are exempt.
All services provided by an educational institution to its students, faculty and staff are exempt, which includes food and beverages supplied by the institution itself; food and beverage supplies provided by any person other than the educational institution under contractual arrangements are leviable to GST at the prescribed rate. Recent amendments removed certain examples from the rate notification and added a service code in the exemption notification to clarify the position.

Classification of photographic printing as photographic processing services leads to higher GST treatment under service classification.
The circular clarifies that printing of pictures is classifiable as Photographic and Videographic Processing Services, since explanatory notes include colour printing of images from film or digital media and related processing activities in that category and explicitly exclude such printing from the category of printing and reproduction of recorded media; accordingly the service attracts the GST treatment associated with photographic and videographic processing.

Immunity from tax: services by multilateral development institutions are exempt from GST under their constitutive Acts.
Services provided by the Asian Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation are exempt from GST under their constitutive Acts, which confer immunity from taxation, customs duties and any obligation to collect or pay tax. This statutory immunity precludes domestic tax provisions from imposing collection obligations on those institutions. The exemption is confined to services supplied by the institutions themselves and does not extend to entities appointed by or working on their behalf, which remain taxable.

GST exemption for long duration educational programmes applies to IIM degree/diploma courses; short term executive courses remain taxable.
IIMs are educational institutions for GST purposes from 31 January 2018; services to students in all long duration programmes (one year or more) conferring degrees/diplomas recognised by law are exempt from GST. For 1 July 2017-30 January 2018 only three specified long programmes were exempt. From 31 January-31 December 2018 both exemptions coexisted and the more beneficial could be claimed. Short duration executive/need based programmes awarding only participation certificates are not exempt and attract standard GST.

Revocation of cancelled GST registration: one-time opportunity to apply subject to furnishing pending returns and subsequent filings.
Applications for revocation of cancellation of registration under section 29(2) are permitted only after all returns due up to the date of cancellation are furnished and amounts paid; where cancellation is retrospective and the portal prevents post cancellation filing, an application may nonetheless be filed provided all returns for the period from the effective date of cancellation to the revocation order are filed within thirty days of the revocation order.

Utilization of input tax credit requires Integrated tax credit to be exhausted first, then apportioned towards other tax liabilities.
Amendments require that the input tax credit of Integrated tax be exhausted completely before any input tax credit of Central tax or State/Union territory tax may be utilized; thereafter Integrated tax credit may be apportioned in any order and proportion towards Central and State/Union territory liabilities. The Board clarifies that the common portal will continue pre-amendment functionality until updated, advises issuance of trade notices, and invites reporting of implementation difficulties.

Utilization of IGST input tax credit must be exhausted before using Central or State tax credits; portal unchanged temporarily.
Credit on account of integrated tax must be completely exhausted before any input tax credit of central tax or state/union territory tax is utilised; the newly inserted rule permits integrated tax credit to be applied towards central and state/union territory tax in any order or proportion provided the entire integrated tax credit is first exhausted, and taxpayers may continue to follow existing common portal functionality until it is updated.