Ecom biggies unsure how GST clauses will affect their business

E-commerce companies like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and the likes are not sure how GST will affect them. In particular they are worried about the clause tax at source, which would impact small scale sellers and increase the compliance burden, and filing tax forms before buying goods more than Rs 5000 in select states. Consumers buying goods over Rs 5000 have to fill a tax form first before receiving the goods.

E-tailers feel if these clauses remain in the final law a lot of infrastructure spends which they would ideally like to invest in developing the market will have to be allocated to comply with these norms.

In India, e-commerce companies see an average of 15 to 20 per cent of their orders returned for various issues and they fear a tax at source will only make things more complex for companies and for sellers. They feel GST can turn out to be detrimental for small scale sellers who do not have easy capital with them.

E-tailers also want to be allowed to use online invoices instead of mandating physical invoices on the back of the products. They feel this will make information sharing easier and will save time and effort for both government and the companies in dealing with each other.