India GST authorities

India Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a value-added tax levied at all points in the supply chain, with credit allowed for any tax paid on purchases made to create a supply, such as a manufactured good or resale item. It applies to both goods and services in a comprehensive manner, with few exemptions.
As of July 2017, GST replaces most indirect taxes levied on goods and services in India.
Goods and Services Tax Highlights:
  • Integrated GST (IGST) is used for Interstate goods and services transactions, imports, and exports. IGST also applies to all transactions where the buyer or seller is within a Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
  • Central GST and State GST (CGST and SGST) are used for Intrastate goods and services transactions.
  • Output tax gets remitted in the seller’s location, while the buyer can take the input tax credit in the buyer’s location.
  • Intracompany transactions are limited to Intrastate transactions where parties share the same GSTIN (registration). There's no concept of a registration group as groups of related companies are considered “intracompany.”
  • Rate bands are included for zero-rated, reduced rated, standard rated (x2), and increased rated items. Examples for IGST: 0%, 5%, 12%, 18%, 28%.
  • The IGST rate equals or approximates the CGST+SGST rate. For example, if the IGST rate on a product's 18%, CGST and SGST are 9% each.
  • A GST Compensation CESS also levies an additional nationwide tax on certain products, such as luxury items that are normally taxed at the highest IGST or CGST+SGST rate. For example, a luxury item may be taxed at 28% IGST + 12% GST Compensation CESS.

Tax data

36 CGST, 36 SGST, and 36 IGST authorities are included for each state and union territory in India (represented as provinces in the Zone Tree).
  • Even though CGST and IGST are administered by the central government, compliance gets done in the buyer’s or seller’s state. Therefore, these authorities are attached at the state level, rather than country level, to ease reporting and compliance activities.
  • A GST Registration Mask format (GSTIN), common across India, is attached to each authority. The first 2 digits of each GSTIN indicate the state code (for example, 07 for Delhi). The GST Compensation CESS has also been included and attached at the Country level.
Existing India authorities (such as India CST) remain with these limitations:
  • A “No Tax” catch-all rule is created for GST products, and the previous rules for products moving into GST are end-dated.
  • Items out of scope for GST, such as liquor and petroleum, continue to return tax for the pre-GST authorities.
A new India GST Product Tree includes the updated Harmonized System codes for goods and all Service Accounting codes.

GST support

Determination includes a number of features to support India GST:
  • Logic for IGST, CGST, SGST, and SEZ transactions.
  • Transaction types to support SEZ.
  • A tax type to support SEZ zero-rated imports.
  • System Configuration options to toggle the behavior of purchasing transactions and services exports.
  • An India GST Product Tree.
  • Rates, Rules, and Product Taxability are included for each authority as part of Sabrix INTL Tax Data.
  • GSTIN (registration number) formats.