'Place of Supply' rules for e-commerce under GST on anvil

As part of GST roll out, the Revenue Department will prepare 'Place of Supply' rules that will comprehensively cover taxation of e-commerce, an official said.
These rules will be important as the Goods and Services Tax will be destination based and levied at the point of delivery. They will help determine the location of supply of goods or services as also whether the supply is intra-state or inter-state.
To be drafted by the Central Board of Excise and Customs for GST implementation, the rules will take into account the sales through e-commerce, CBEC Member V S Krishnan said.
"E-commerce is a sunrise industry. In next 3-4 years, it is likely to boom. The Place of Supply rules will have to be drafted carefully to take this into account," he said.

"They are essential and extremely important because there are pan-India services like banking, telecom, insurance where it is not so easy to locate the recipient of service... E-commerce will also have to be taken care of through these rules," he added.
Once the draft rules are finalised, CBEC will invite comments from the industry.

According to estimates, the e-commerce market in the country is around USD 5 billion and online shopping is expected to expand at a massive rate.
For roll out of GST, CBEC is already preparing model legislations which will be put up for comments from stakeholders after Parliament approves the GST Constitution Amendment Bill.

The three legislations -- Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and integrated GST (iGST) -- will have to be approved by the respective legislatures.
The government plans to implement the single rate GST, which would subsume central excise, service tax and other local levies, from April 1, 2016.
However, much will depend upon the passage of the GST Constitution Amendment Bill, which is pending in the Rajya Sabha.