Businessmen sour over e-invoices for units with 5cr+ turnover

LUDHIANA: City businessmen are furious over the decision of the Centre to make e-invoicing mandatory for businesses with turnover of more than Rs 5 crore. The rule is notified to come into effect from August 1, and the industrialists have urged the government not to change the present exemption limit for e-invoicing, which is a turnover up to Rs 10 crore.
Businessmen are worried that the mandatory e-invoicing will increase the expenses for the small industries, as it is a complicated and time-taking process for which they might have to hire additional staff.
As per information, businesses with turnover more than Rs 5 crore will have to generate a QR code from an e-portal given by the Government of India; these unique QR codes will then be attached with the e-invoices that they will generate upon every transaction.
Harish Kairpal, president of Ludhiana MSME Association said, “Making e-invoicing mandatory is very ill timed and impractical, as there are many small businesses in Ludhiana — like manufacturing units and traders — which will come under this rule despite them having very less profits. For compliance to e-invoicing, every firm will have to shell out huge money on buying softwares for changing the billing system, besides hiring experts to manage the billing.”
This decision of government will make working of the small businesses very tough and therefore it should not be implemented”
Dinesh Kalra, president of Ludhiana Business Forums says that the Centre itself has put the businesses with turnover up to Rs 5 crore in the micro category, which means they have less resources; and “burdening such units with expensive and complex e-invoicing system is wrong”.
He adds, “Centre should adopt a sensible approach and get an in-depth analysis done about the implications and challenges of e-invoicing on micro industry.”
He informed that they will soon take up the issue with Union minister of state (MoS) for industry and commerce, Som Parkash.
Tax expert N K Thaman explained the new norms: “In case of e-invoicing, QR code containing invoice reference number (IRN), which will be generated by entering information on Invoice Reference Portal (IRP), will have to be mandatorily used on the e-invoice. For generation of IRN, the units can either develop their accounting software, or the units can generate the code using the IRP.”