In short: West Bengal cut its intra-state e-way bill threshold in half — from ₹1,00,000 to ₹50,000 — with effect from 1 June 2026, and the GST Appellate Tribunal’s Kolkata Bench has been hearing appeals for West Bengal, Sikkim and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands since March 2026. This guide sets out the exact thresholds, deadlines, penalty figures and notification numbers that apply to a Kolkata GST registration in 2026 — from Howrah’s foundry and engineering base to Salt Lake Sector V’s IT and GCC corridor — from CA Murli Chandak, FCA, with 8+ years in practice.
Contents
- Why Kolkata Businesses Need Specialised GST Support
- GST Registration in West Bengal: Threshold, Process and Fast-Track Approval
- 2025-26 GST Changes at a Glance
- Filing GST Returns: Monthly and Quarterly (QRMP) in West Bengal
- Input Tax Credit and the Invoice Management System (IMS)
- E-Way Bills in West Bengal: A Threshold Cut in Half
- Late Fees, Interest and Penalties: The Numbers You Need to Know
- E-Invoicing: Thresholds and the 30-Day Reporting Rule
- Annual Returns: GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C
- GST Notices, Scrutiny and Departmental Audits
- Appeals and the GSTAT Kolkata Bench
- GST for West Bengal’s Two Business Bases: Howrah’s Foundries and Sector V’s GCCs
- Why Kolkata Businesses Work With CA Murli Chandak
- Frequently Asked Questions
1. Why Kolkata Businesses Need Specialised GST Support
Kolkata’s GST base splits sharply along two very different lines. On one side is a large, mostly MSME manufacturing and engineering base — foundries, casting units and ancillary workshops concentrated in and around Howrah — moving goods intra-state on thin margins and tight schedules. On the other is a newer Salt Lake Sector V and New Town IT, ITES and Global Capability Centre corridor, billing overseas clients almost entirely in foreign exchange. A generic GST checklist tends to miss both: the Howrah cluster’s problems are almost always about e-way bills, reverse charge on freight and blocked credit, while Sector V’s are almost always about export-of-service classification.
Two changes in 2026 matter to both groups regardless of which side of that split a business sits on. First, West Bengal cut its intra-state e-way bill threshold in half, from ₹1,00,000 to ₹50,000, effective 1 June 2026 — a change that lands hardest on businesses moving goods frequently within the state at moderate values, which describes most of the Howrah foundry trade. Second, the GST Appellate Tribunal’s Kolkata Bench became operational on 23 March 2026, giving West Bengal, Sikkim and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands a functioning second-appeal route for the first time since GST was introduced in 2017.
2. GST Registration in West Bengal: Threshold, Process and Fast-Track Approval
West Bengal follows the standard national thresholds under Section 22 of the CGST Act, 2017, as a normal-category state:
- Goods suppliers: ₹40 lakh aggregate turnover
- Service providers: ₹20 lakh aggregate turnover
- Composition scheme: available up to ₹1.5 crore turnover for eligible goods businesses at a flat 1%, with a separate Section 10(2A) variant for service providers up to ₹50 lakh turnover at 6%
Registration is compulsory regardless of turnover for inter-state suppliers, e-commerce sellers, casual taxable persons and other categories listed under Section 24 of the CGST Act, which overrides the Section 22 threshold test wherever it applies. West Bengal-registered GSTINs carry the state code 19.
Applications go through Form GST REG-01. Two processing tracks now run in parallel: the standard route grants registration within 7 working days where Aadhaar authentication succeeds and the application isn’t flagged for scrutiny, or up to 30 days where physical verification is required; and since 1 November 2025, low-risk applicants with monthly B2B output tax liability up to ₹2.5 lakh can opt into Rule 14A (inserted by Notification No. 18/2025-Central Tax) for auto-approval within just 3 working days once Aadhaar e-KYC is complete. A Howrah foundry unit selling mainly to local rolling mills and machinery buyers, well under that B2B threshold, is a natural fit for this route — a unit exporting castings on a larger scale generally isn’t.
3. 2025-26 GST Changes at a Glance
GST has moved faster in the past year than at almost any point since 2017, and two of the changes below are specific to West Bengal.
| Change | What It Means for You |
|---|---|
| West Bengal e-way bill threshold halved (eff. 1 Jun 2026) | Intra-state consignments above ₹50,000 (down from ₹1,00,000) now need an e-way bill — see Section 6 |
| GSTAT Kolkata Bench operational (23 Mar 2026) | A genuine second-appeal route now exists for West Bengal, Sikkim and the A&N Islands without going to the Calcutta High Court — see Section 11 |
| GST 2.0 rate rationalisation (effective 22 Sep 2025) | Four slabs collapsed into a two-slab structure (5%/18%) plus a 40% demerit rate; check whether your HSN/SAC codes moved |
| GSTR-3B auto-population hard-lock (Jul 2025) | Outward-liability figures auto-populated from GSTR-1/IFF can no longer be freely overridden in GSTR-3B; corrections must go through GSTR-1A before filing |
| IMS “Pending” option for credit notes (Advisory 628, Oct 2025) | You can now park a disputed credit note for one tax period instead of an immediate accept/reject, and adjust the ITC reversal manually on acceptance |
| 3-year return filing bar (rolling restriction since Jul 2025) | Each month the portal permanently blocks filing for whichever return period just crossed 3 years overdue — the cut-off keeps advancing, it isn’t a one-time deadline |
| Rule 14A fast-track registration (effective 1 Nov 2025) | Low-risk applicants under ₹2.5 lakh/month B2B output tax can get a GSTIN in 3 working days instead of 7-30 |
| E-invoicing: ₹5 crore mandate, ₹10 crore 30-day rule (eff. 1 Apr 2025) | Above ₹10 crore turnover, invoices must reach the IRP within 30 days of the invoice date or the IRN is refused |
| Permanent GSTR-9 exemption up to ₹2 crore turnover | Small taxpayers below this threshold no longer need to file the annual return each year |
4. Filing GST Returns: Monthly and Quarterly (QRMP) in West Bengal
Regular taxpayers file GSTR-1 (outward supplies) and GSTR-3B (summary return and payment) monthly, or quarterly under QRMP if turnover is up to ₹5 crore.
- Monthly filers: GSTR-1 by the 11th, GSTR-3B by the 20th of the following month
- QRMP filers: West Bengal is a Category Y state, so quarterly GSTR-3B is due on the 24th of the month following the quarter — not the 22nd, which applies to Category X states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. GSTR-1/IFF is due by the 13th
- PMT-06 payments: QRMP filers still pay tax monthly for the first two months of each quarter, by the 25th, settling the balance with the quarterly return
Reconciliation now has to happen upstream in GSTR-2B and IMS rather than at GSTR-3B filing time, and, since the July 2025 tax period, returns more than three years past their original due date are permanently barred from filing — a rolling monthly cut-off rather than a one-time deadline, so a return sitting unfiled today is closer to falling out of reach than it looks.
5. Input Tax Credit and the Invoice Management System (IMS)
ITC is where most GST disputes originate and where money is quietly lost — through non-filing vendors, unreconciled mismatches, or credit claimed against invoices that don’t survive a departmental cross-check. Since October 2025, IMS sits between your purchase register and your GSTR-3B: every inward document must be accepted, rejected, or (for specified categories, including credit notes) marked pending for one tax period, and anything left unactioned is deemed accepted by the time GSTR-2B generates on the 14th.
Practical protection looks like matching GSTR-2B to your books every month rather than at year-end, following up on vendor non-compliance before it becomes your liability under Section 16(2)(c), and keeping tax invoices, e-way bills and delivery documentation organised well enough to survive a scrutiny notice without a scramble — a discipline that matters as much for a Howrah casting unit reconciling scrap and pig-iron purchases as for a Sector V GCC reconciling software-licence invoices.
Get your GST filings reviewed before the next return is due. A short conversation is often enough to flag ITC leakage, a registration gap, or a filing pattern likely to draw a notice.
6. E-Way Bills in West Bengal: A Threshold Cut in Half
West Bengal has moved in the opposite direction to states like Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, which set intra-state e-way bill thresholds above the ₹50,000 national default. Until 31 May 2026, West Bengal itself ran a higher threshold: ₹1,00,000 for goods moving entirely within the state, under Notification No. 03/2023-C.T./GST dated 18 December 2023. That changed with Notification No. 02/2026-C.T./GST dated 22 May 2026, issued by the Commissioner of State Tax under Rule 138(14) of the West Bengal GST Rules, 2017, and clarified by Trade Circular No. 01/2026 dated 25 May 2026: with effect from 1 June 2026, an e-way bill is mandatory for intra-state movement of goods once consignment value exceeds ₹50,000 — a straight halving of the earlier limit.
One exemption survives the change intact: movement connected with job work — goods sent by a principal to a job-worker, moved between two job-workers, or returned to the principal after completion — stays outside the e-way bill requirement at any consignment value, as defined under Section 2(68) of the CGST Act and the West Bengal GST Act.
The practical effect falls hardest on businesses that move goods within West Bengal often and at moderate values — which describes Howrah’s foundry and engineering cluster more than most. A consignment of finished castings, machinery parts or scrap metal that comfortably sat under the old ₹1,00,000 limit may now cross ₹50,000 without anyone updating the dispatch paperwork, and moving goods without a required e-way bill carries detention and penalty exposure under Section 129 of the CGST Act, separate from the underlying tax liability. Non-job-work intra-state despatches now need checking against the new limit as a matter of routine, not just for larger interstate consignments.
7. Late Fees, Interest and Penalties: The Numbers You Need to Know
GST’s penalty structure looks arbitrary until you see it as a table. It isn’t discretionary in most cases — the amounts below are fixed by section and notification.
| Trigger | Amount |
|---|---|
| Late GSTR-1/GSTR-3B (with tax liability) | ₹50/day (₹25 CGST + ₹25 SGST), capped at ₹2,000 (turnover ≤ ₹1.5cr), ₹5,000 (₹1.5-5cr) or ₹10,000 (> ₹5cr) per return |
| Late nil GSTR-1/GSTR-3B | ₹20/day, capped at ₹500 per return |
| Interest on delayed tax payment (Section 50) | 18% per annum on the net cash tax liability |
| Interest on wrongly availed/utilised ITC | 24% per annum |
| Section 122(2)(a) — short/non-payment, no fraud | ₹10,000 or 10% of the tax due, whichever is higher |
| Section 122(2)(b) — fraud or wilful suppression | ₹10,000 or 100% of the tax due, whichever is higher |
| Missing or invalid e-invoice (where mandatory) | ₹10,000 per invoice or 100% of the tax involved, whichever is higher |
| Late GSTR-9C (turnover > ₹5 crore) | ₹200/day (₹100 CGST + ₹100 SGST), capped at 0.5% of turnover in the state |
Late fees must be paid in cash through the electronic cash ledger — never from ITC — and they accrue independently for every pending return period, so a backlog of unfiled returns compounds fast.
8. E-Invoicing: Thresholds and the 30-Day Reporting Rule
E-invoicing is mandatory for any GST-registered business whose aggregate turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any financial year from 2017-18 onwards — a threshold in force since 1 August 2023 and unchanged for FY 2026-27. Once that threshold is crossed once, it applies permanently to every GSTIN under the same PAN, even in a later year where turnover falls back below ₹5 crore.
A tighter rule sits on top of this for larger taxpayers: businesses with turnover of ₹10 crore or more must report each invoice, credit note and debit note to the Invoice Registration Portal within 30 days of the invoice date (effective 1 April 2025); the portal rejects anything reported later, and an invoice without a valid IRN and QR code is not a valid tax invoice for ITC purposes. E-invoicing does not apply to SEZ units, banks, insurers, NBFCs, goods transport agencies, passenger transport operators or multiplex cinema admissions, regardless of turnover.
9. Annual Returns: GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C
GSTR-9 (annual return) is mandatory above ₹2 crore aggregate turnover; taxpayers below that threshold are permanently exempt from filing it. GSTR-9C (reconciliation statement against audited financials) is mandatory above ₹5 crore turnover, calculated PAN-wise but filed separately for each GSTIN. Since FY 2020-21, GSTR-9C is self-certified — a Chartered Accountant or Cost Accountant’s certification is no longer a statutory requirement, though many businesses still commission a professional review before filing, given the exposure a reconciliation error creates. Both returns are due by 31 December following the financial year.
10. GST Notices, Scrutiny and Departmental Audits
A GST notice carries a fixed, often short response window, and the right reply depends entirely on which section it’s issued under:
- ASMT-10 — a system-flagged discrepancy notice under Section 61 scrutiny, typically comparing GSTR-1, GSTR-3B and GSTR-2B figures
- DRC-01A — an intimation of tax ascertained as payable, issued before a formal show-cause notice, giving an opportunity to pay and avoid escalation
- Section 73 — demand notices for short-payment or wrong ITC without allegation of fraud
- Section 74 — demand notices involving fraud, wilful misstatement or suppression of facts, carrying materially higher penalty exposure
A generic reply to any of these narrows your options at every later stage, including at appeal. The response needs to address the specific figures and the specific section cited, not GST compliance in general.
11. Appeals and the GSTAT Kolkata Bench
If a departmental order goes against you, the appeal path now runs through three defined stages, each with its own pre-deposit requirement.
- First appeal (Section 107) — filed before the Joint/Additional Commissioner (Appeals) within 3 months of the order (1 month condonation available), requiring 100% of the admitted tax plus 10% of the disputed tax, capped at ₹20 crore each for CGST and SGST
- Second appeal — GSTAT (Section 112) — an additional 10% of the remaining disputed tax (a cumulative 20% across both stages), same ₹20 crore cap per head, following the Finance Act 2024 reduction effective 1 November 2024. Since 1 October 2025, penalty-only orders (with no tax demand) also require a 10% pre-deposit of the disputed penalty
The GSTAT Kolkata Bench has been functional since 23 March 2026 — formally notified via Public Notice No. 01/2026 (File No. GSTAT/Kolkata/2025-2026/36) — and sits at 2/5 Judges Court Road, Alipore, Kolkata 700027 (Old Door Sanchar Bhawan), hearing appeals arising under the CGST Act, IGST Act and the respective State/UT GST Acts for West Bengal, Sikkim and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. Appeals are filed electronically in Form GST APL-05 through the GSTAT e-filing portal. Before this, the only route past the first appellate authority for a Kolkata taxpayer was a writ petition to the Calcutta High Court — slower and costlier, and a route many smaller businesses simply didn’t pursue. A functioning local Tribunal changes that calculation meaningfully, particularly for Howrah’s smaller foundry units, for whom a High Court writ was rarely a realistic option.
12. GST for West Bengal’s Two Business Bases: Howrah’s Foundries and Sector V’s GCCs
12.1 Howrah’s Foundry and Engineering Cluster
Howrah hosts one of India’s largest concentrated foundry clusters — roughly 500 units, with around 95% of them located in Howrah district, producing cast-iron, ductile-iron and steel castings for machinery, sanitary fittings, railway and industrial applications, alongside a wider base of engineering, rolling-mill and structural-steel units in the same district. The West Bengal government’s own industry portal describes Howrah as the state’s engineering hub for basic metal products, machinery and equipment manufacturing, and electrical and transport equipment and spares — almost entirely small and medium enterprises rather than large corporates.
For this cluster, three GST mechanics come up more often than any classification question:
- Reverse charge on freight. Goods transport agency services — the routine cost of moving pig iron, coke, scrap and finished castings — attract reverse charge under Section 9(3) of the CGST Act in the specified circumstances, with the recipient discharging the liability in cash, separate from whatever ITC the business claims on outward supplies.
- Blocked credit under Section 17(5). Motor vehicles used for transporting goods sit outside the block in defined circumstances, but a routine review still catches misclassified claims often enough to be worth doing regularly rather than only at year-end.
- The composition scheme trade-off. Smaller units below ₹1.5 crore turnover may find the flat 1% composition rate attractive, but composition dealers cannot claim input tax credit and cannot make inter-state outward supplies — a real constraint for a unit that occasionally ships castings to a buyer outside West Bengal.
The halved e-way bill threshold discussed in Section 6 hits this cluster harder than most of Kolkata’s economy, simply because of how often goods move between mills, warehouses and buyers within the state at moderate values.
12.2 Salt Lake Sector V and New Town’s IT, ITES and GCC Corridor
A very different set of questions applies to Kolkata’s technology and Global Capability Centre base. Section 2(6) of the IGST Act sets a five-part test for a supply to qualify as an export of service — the supplier is in India, the recipient is outside India, the place of supply falls outside India, payment arrives in convertible foreign exchange, and the supplier and recipient are not merely two establishments of the same distinct person. That last condition is where a Sector V or New Town GCC most often runs into difficulty, since an Indian GCC and its foreign parent can be treated as establishments of a single distinct person under Explanation 1 to Section 8 of the IGST Act.
A separate, more recent change affects a narrower group: businesses doing intermediary work — arranging or facilitating a supply between two other parties rather than supplying the core service directly. Section 13(8)(b) of the IGST Act used to fix an intermediary’s place of supply at the supplier’s own location in India regardless of where the client sat, denying export treatment even on income earned entirely offshore. Section 157 of the Finance Act 2026 (Presidential assent 30 March 2026) omitted Section 13(8)(b) altogether, so intermediary services now fall back on the general recipient-location rule under Section 13(2) — provided the arrangement genuinely meets the Section 2(13) intermediary test, which is unaffected by this change. Where a GCC’s Indian entity centralises costs across multiple registrations, Input Service Distributor registration has been mandatory for passing on credit on common third-party services since 1 April 2025, a separate mechanism from cross-charge on services generated in-house.
13. Why Kolkata Businesses Work With CA Murli Chandak
CA Murli Chandak is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) and an IBBI-Registered Valuer (Securities or Financial Assets) with 8+ years in practice, working with businesses across Kolkata and other cities entirely remotely — GST registration, return filing, notice response and ITC reconciliation don’t require a local office visit, and every engagement is handled with direct access to the CA managing it rather than a rotating team of juniors. Working with a Kolkata client from an Ahmedabad-based practice changes nothing about the quality of the file. The full scope of GST, income-tax and compliance support is set out under Taxation Services.
14. Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the GST registration threshold for a business in Kolkata?
₹40 lakh for goods suppliers and ₹20 lakh for service providers — West Bengal is a normal-category state and follows the standard national thresholds.
2. Which GSTIN state code applies to West Bengal?
19.
3. When is quarterly GSTR-3B due for a Kolkata business on QRMP?
The 24th of the month following the quarter — West Bengal is a Category Y state.
4. What is the current e-way bill threshold for moving goods within West Bengal?
₹50,000 for intra-state movement, effective 1 June 2026 — halved from the earlier ₹1,00,000 limit. Job-work movements remain exempt at any value.
5. Is there now a GST Appellate Tribunal bench in Kolkata?
Yes. It has been functional since 23 March 2026 and hears appeals for West Bengal, Sikkim and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
6. Can my Kolkata business now treat intermediary services to a foreign client as an export?
Generally yes, from 30 March 2026, following the omission of Section 13(8)(b) of the IGST Act — provided the arrangement genuinely meets the intermediary test under Section 2(13). It needs checking transaction by transaction, not assumed.
7. What happens if I miss a GSTR-3B filing deadline?
A late fee (₹50/day where there’s a tax liability, ₹20/day for nil returns, both capped by turnover slab) plus 18% per annum interest on the unpaid tax.
8. Can a composition-scheme foundry unit in Howrah sell to a buyer outside West Bengal?
No. Composition dealers cannot make inter-state outward supplies. A unit that expects even occasional out-of-state sales generally needs regular registration instead.
9. Do I need to visit a Kolkata office to work with CA Murli Chandak?
No. Engagements — registration, return filing, notice response and reconciliation — are handled remotely.
10. What should I do if I receive a GST scrutiny notice?
Respond within the stated window, addressed to the specific section and the specific figures the department has flagged. Don’t ignore it, and don’t file a generic reply — the response shapes every subsequent stage if the matter isn’t resolved at that level.
This article reflects GST law and West Bengal-specific rules in force as of 4 September 2026. GST rules, rates and thresholds change frequently — please verify current requirements before relying on this for a specific filing or transaction.
Have a GST registration, filing or notice question specific to your Kolkata business?
CA Murli Chandak – FCA | IBBI-Registered Valuer (Securities or Financial Assets) | IBBI/RV/07/2021/14408
Website: murlichandak.com
Phone: +91 99985 39902
Email: murlichandak@murlichandak.com
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