Place of Supply in Goods and Service Tax

Place of Supply of Goods or Services or Both: The basic principle of GST is that it should effectively tax the consumption of such supplies at the destination thereof or as the case may at the point of consumption. So place of supply provision determines the place i.e. taxable jurisdiction where the tax should reach. The place of supply determines whether a transaction is intra-state or interstate. In other words, the place of Supply of Goods or services is required to determine whether a supply is subject to SGST plus CGST in a given State or union territory or else would attract IGST if it is an inter-state supply.

Separate Place of Supply for Goods and Services:

(a) Goods being tangible do not pose any significant problems for determination of their place of consumption. Services being intangible pose problems w.r.t. determination of place of supply mainly due to following factors:

(b) The manner of delivery of service could be altered easily. For example, telecom service could change from mostly post-paid to mostly pre-paid; billing address could be changed, billers address could be changed, repair or maintenance of software could be changed from onsite to online; banking services were earlier required customer to go to the bank, now the customer could avail service from anywhere;

(c) Service provider, service receiver and the service provided may not be ascertainable or may easily be suppressed as nothing tangible moves and there would hardly be a trail;

(d) For supplying a service, a fixed location of service provider is not mandatory and even the service recipient may receive service while on the move. The location of billing could be changed overnight;

(d) Sometime the same element may flow to more than one location, for example, construction or other services in respect of a railway line, a national highway or a bridge on a river which originate in one state and end in the other state. Similarly, a copy right for distribution and exhibition of film could be assigned for many states in single transaction or an advertisement or a programme is broadcasted across the country at the same time. An airline may issue seasonal tickets, containing say 10 leafs which could be used for travel between any two locations in the country. The card issued by Delhi metro could be used by a person located in Noida, or Delhi or Faridabad, without the Delhi metro being able to distinguish the location or journeys at the time of receipt of payment;

(e) Services are continuously evolving and would thus continue to pose newer challenges. For example, 15-20 years back no one could have thought of DTH, online information, online banking, online booking of tickets, internet, mobile telecommunication etc.

Main Factors to determine the Place of Supply

The various element involved in a transaction in services can be used as proxies to determine the place of supply. An assumption which gives more appropriate result than others for determining the place of supply, could be used for determining the place of supply. The same are discussed below:

(a) location of service provider;

(b) the location of service receiver;

(d) the place where it is consumed; and

(e) the place/person to which actual benefit flows.

Statutory Provision in GST Law related to ‘Place of Supply’

Chapter V of The Integrated Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 (No. 13 of 2017) provides following provisions relating to ‘Place of Supply of Goods or Services’:

Section 10	:	Place of supply of goods other than supply of goods imported into, or exported from India.
Section 11	:	Place of supply of goods imported into, or exported from India.
Section 12	:	Place of supply of services where location of supplier and recipient is in India
Section 13	:	Place of supply of services where location of supplier or location of recipient is outside India.
Section 14	:	Special provision for payment of tax by a supplier of online information and database access or retrieval services

PLACE OF SUPPLY OF GOODS

A.General rule for place of supply of goods (other than imports and exports)

S. No.	Nature of Transaction	Place of Supply of Goods
1.	Supply involves movement of goods	Location of delivery of goods to recipient
2.	Supply without movement of goods	Location of goods at the time of delivery to the recipient.
3.	Assembly or installation at site	Place of assembly or installation
4.	Supply on board a conveyance such as vessel, aircraft, train, motor vehicle	Location at which such goods are taken on board.
5.	Supplier delivering to a recipient on direction of a third person	Third person’s principle place of business for the first leg of the supply and location of delivery to recipient for the second leg.
6.	If POS cannot be determined as per Sr. no 1 to 5	Same shall be determined in a manner prescribed by the Central Government.

B.Place of supply where goods are delivered by supplier on the direction of third person

Where the goods are delivered by the supplier to a person, on the direction of a third person, whether acting as an agent or otherwise, it shall be deemed that the said third person has received the goods and the place of supply of such goods shall be the principal place of business of such third person.

C.Place of supply of goods imported into or exported from India

S. No	Transaction	Place of supply
1.	Import	Location of importer
2.	Export	Location outside India

PLACE OF SUPPLY OF SERVICES

Principles of place of domestic supply of services in exceptional cases:

Place of supply of services where both the supplier and the recipient are located in India shall be as follows in the circumstances as described:

S. No.	Nature of Service	Place of Supply
1.	Directly relating to immovable property
	(a) If property is located in India	Place where immovable property is located.
	(b) If property is located outside India	Location of recipient.
2.	Performance based services namely restaurant & catering, personal grooming, fitness, beauty treatment, health services including cosmetic & plastic surgery	Where services are actually performed
3.	Admission to an event	Where event is held
4.	Service on board a conveyance	First scheduled point of departure
5.	Banking & Financial service( including Stock broking )
	(a) if location of recipient is available on record of the supplier	Location of service recipient
	(b) if location of the recipient of service is not available on record of the supplier	Location of service provider
6.	Insurance service ( whether provided to registered or non- registered person )	Location of service recipient (Location of service recipient on record in case of unregistered person)