GST Council to allow e-commerce for unregistered vendors

New Delhi, Dec 17 : The GST Council approved the amendments in the GST Act and GST Rules for allowing unregistered suppliers and composition taxpayers to make intra-state supply of goods through E-Commerce Operators (ECOs), subject to certain conditions.

Appreciating wholeheartedly the major decision of the GST Council to allow small unregistered vendors to sell their goods through e-commerce portals, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Saturday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for this “progressive decision” which was demanded by CAIT since last more than two years.

CAIT national president B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said this decision will empower small traders who are below GST threshold limit to expand their business through e-commerce and will strongly strengthen Digital India vision.

There are more than 8 crore small traders in the country but a large number of traders are conducting business activities without GST registration since their annual sale is below the GST threshold limit. Such traders will now be able to trade on e-commerce.

Earlier, GST Council in its 47th meeting had granted in-principle approval for allowing unregistered suppliers and composition taxpayers to make intra-state supply of goods through ECOs, subject to certain conditions.

CAIT said that India is fast emerging as the e-commerce hub and there is tremendous growth in online business.

E-commerce business in India is now approximately 10 per cent of total retail.

“In view of this it was extremely pertinent that small vendors, those who have small turnovers and do not fall under the purview of the GST, were not able to conduct online business, thus causing huge loss of market and business opportunities,” a statement said.