GST Basics #15: Section 31 — When You Must Raise a Tax Invoice

The fifteenth instalment of our section-by-section guide: when a tax invoice must be issued for goods and for services, the time limits, when a bill of supply replaces it, and the vouchers that sit alongside it.

The tax invoice is the document the whole of GST runs on. Your customer cannot claim input tax credit without it, because Section 16(2)(a) makes a tax invoice a condition of the credit, as we covered in GST Basics #11. Section 31 of the CGST Act is the provision that tells you when to raise one.

For goods, the invoice must be issued before or at the time the goods are removed for supply, or delivered to the buyer. There is no grace period. For services, you have a little more room: the invoice may be issued before or after the service is provided, but CBIC's own guidance puts the outer limit at 30 days from the date the service is supplied.

Invoices for goods are prepared in triplicate, marked "Original for recipient", "Duplicate for transporter" and "Triplicate for supplier". For services, duplicate is enough. If the value of a supply is less than Rs. 200, an invoice need not be issued at all, subject to the conditions laid down.

Not every document is a tax invoice. If you supply only exempted goods or services, or you have opted for the composition scheme under Section 10 (GST Basics #9), you issue a bill of supply instead. It carries much the same particulars but shows no tax, because you are not collecting any.

Several other documents sit alongside the invoice. When you receive an advance, you issue a receipt voucher. If that supply never happens and no invoice was raised, you return the money against a refund voucher. When you are the one paying tax under reverse charge (GST Basics #8), you issue a payment voucher at the time of paying your supplier.

Some supplies do not have a single moment of removal. For a continuous supply of goods against successive statements or payments, the invoice goes out at the time each statement is issued or each payment is received. For a continuous supply of services, the invoice follows the contract: on or before the due date of payment where that date is ascertainable, on receipt of payment where it is not, and on or before the completion of the event where payment is tied to one. Goods sent on approval must be invoiced by the time of supply or six months from removal, whichever is earlier.

Finally, if your registration takes effect from a date earlier than the date the certificate was actually issued (GST Basics #6 on Section 25), you may raise a revised invoice for supplies made in that gap, marked "Revised Invoice". Corrections after the event are made by debit and credit notes under Section 34.

CBIC's own plain-language flyer on invoicing: https://gstcouncil.gov.in/sites/default/files/e-version-gst-flyers/Tax_Invoice_and_other_new.pdf

Topics:section 31tax invoicebill of supplyreceipt voucherpayment voucherrevised invoiceCGST ActGST basicscontinuous supplyreverse chargeChennai GSTTamil Nadu

Back to all GST updates