GST Applicability

[Ethirajan Parthasarathy]

A GTA has head office in Tamil Nadu and branch in Karnataka. Both the places are registered under GST. For movement of goods from Karnataka to Tamil Nadu, Karnataka branch of GTA generates consignment note but the invoice is raised by Chennai office of GTA.

Is recipient of such goods liable to pay CGST and SGST because invoice is from Chennai office of GTA under RCM or IGST because consignment note is issued by Bangalore branch of GTA.

[KASTURI SETHI]

In my view, location of supplier is to be determined on the basis of invoice.

[JSW CEMENTLIMITED]

CGST or SGST or IGST depends on the location of service provider and service recipient. Here since GTA is also registered in Karnataka, department may raise an issue to the extent that you will have to pay cgst and SGST since you are registerd in Karnataka and also the location of service provider and service receiver both are in Karnataka. Had you not registered in Karnataka in that case you will have a contract made between your HO and service recipient, then it would be appropriate to raise invoice from HO.

[Shilpi Jain]

ideally in this situation, if the PO is received by the TN branch and the vehicle that transports is that of the Kar branch, the consignment note should be issued by the TN branch and the transaction between Kar and TN branch should be that of a hire of vehicle, which is exempt, and the customer would get invoice from the TN branch.

In this scenario, the question now that arises is what is the service provided by the Kar branch to the TN branch since the Kar branch has issued the consignment note. Whether TN branch is a GTA?

To avoid all these interpretation issues see if you can revise the invoice to the customer to be issued from Kar branch itself.

[Ganeshan Kalyani]

The address on the invoice is considered for determining the transaction is within same State or between two different States.

AI Summary

Supplier location determines GST liability; align invoice and consignment note to establish CGST/SGST or IGST applicability. The decisive factor for CGST/SGST versus IGST is the supplier's location as determined by the invoice or the address shown on the invoice. To avoid uncertainty where a branch issues the consignment note but the head office raises the invoice, parties should align issuance-either have the Karnataka branch issue the invoice or have the Tamil Nadu branch issue the consignment note-and treat inter branch vehicle hire and applicable exemptions accordingly.