Mumbai: Does a company that rents out heavy infrastructure equipment for projects needs to register in each state where the machinery is used? In what could become a contentious point between revenue authorities of states, indirect-tax officials of Uttar Pradesh recently issued notices to several infrastructure companies that lease heavy equipment such cranes for projects. The officials have questioned as to why the leasing companies were not registered within the state.
This could lead to other states too asking such companies to register in their jurisdictions and pay goods and services tax there. Because of the way the
GST framework is structured, multiple registrations may not cause additional cost to these companies, but their compliance burden will go up, tax experts said.
At present, the equipment typically is owned by a company but leased across India for various projects, and GST is paid on the lease based on the location of the service provider.
“These notices (asking for local registration) are like asking a rent-acab operator to obtain registration in every state where his car provides service with a driver,” said Abhishek A Rastogi, a partner at Khaitan & Co.
“Such notice or investigation could be challenged as GST registration is not required in the state of usage of machinery even in case it is operated by an operator. Although the IGST applicability arises, there is no need of compulsive registration based on place of provision of services,” said Rastogi.
Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com