TVS Avenue Ambattur GST Audit Support — Chennai North

Sub-section (1) of Section 65 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act empowers the Commissioner, or any officer authorised by him through a general or specific order, to undertake audit of any registered person for such period, frequency and manner as may be prescribed. Sub-section (2) provides that the audit may be conducted either at the place of business of the registered person or at the office of the proper officer. It is to be noted that this provision is the substantive source of departmental audit jurisdiction and is read with Rule 101 for procedural mechanics.

Sub-section (1) of Section 66 provides that if at any stage of scrutiny, inquiry, investigation or any other proceedings, the officer not below the rank of Assistant Commissioner, having regard to the nature and complexity of the case and the interest of revenue, is of the opinion that the value has not been correctly declared or the credit availed is not within the normal limits, he may, with prior approval of the Commissioner, direct the registered person to get the records including books of account examined and audited by a chartered accountant or a cost accountant nominated by the Commissioner.

Sub-rule (1) of Rule 101 provides that the period of audit shall be a financial year or part thereof or multiples thereof. Sub-rule (2) prescribes Form GST ADT-01 for the audit notice. Sub-rule (4) directs the proper officer, on conclusion of audit, to record the audit observations in his audit notes and to inform the registered person of the discrepancies, who may file his reply. Sub-rule (5) prescribes Form GST ADT-02 for communication of audit findings.

Sub-section (3) of Section 66 directs the nominee auditor to submit the report to the Assistant Commissioner within ninety days, which may be extended by a further ninety days on application by the registered person or the nominee auditor for material and sufficient reasons. It is to be noted that the ceiling on combined period under this provision is one hundred and eighty days.

Sub-section (5) of Section 35, as it stood prior to amendment by the Finance Act 2021, required every registered person whose turnover exceeded the prescribed threshold to get his accounts audited by a chartered accountant or a cost accountant and submit a copy of the audited annual accounts, the reconciliation statement and other documents in the prescribed form. The Finance Act 2021 omitted this sub-section with effect from 1 August 2021. It is to be noted that the GSTR-9C reconciliation statement is now a self-certified document under Rule 80.

Sub-section (7) of Section 65 provides that where the audit results in detection of tax not paid or short paid, erroneously refunded, or input tax credit wrongly availed or utilised, the proper officer may initiate action under Section 73 or Section 74. It is to be noted that this sub-section is the statutory bridge between the audit conclusion and adjudication proceedings.

What is a GST audit and where does it sit in the compliance architecture

Statutory framework under Chapter XIII of the CGST Act

The audit framework under the Central Goods and Services Tax Act 2017 is contained in Chapter XIII, comprising Sections 65, 66 and 71. Section 65 provides for departmental audit, Section 66 for special audit by a Chartered Accountant or Cost Accountant nominated by the Commissioner, and Section 71 for access to business premises by an authorised officer. The Empowered Committee 2009 First Discussion Paper had envisaged audit as the principal verification layer in a self-assessment regime, replacing the pre-GST pattern of routine assessment under the VAT/CST framework. The architecture is risk-based: not every registered person is audited; selection is driven by Section 65(2) read with internal CBIC risk-management directions which factor in turnover scale, sectoral risk profile, prior compliance history and reconciliation gaps surfaced in GSTR-9C self-certification. The audit-process closure under Section 65(7) feeds either into a no-objection certificate, a voluntary DRC-03 payment, or an SCN under Section 73 or Section 74 depending on whether tax has been short-paid, short-collected or wrongly availed as ITC.

Audit versus assessment versus inspection

Audit under Section 65 or 66 is conceptually distinct from assessment under Sections 61 (scrutiny of returns) and 62 (best-judgement assessment of non-filers) and from inspection / search / seizure under Section 67. Scrutiny under Section 61 is a desk-review of returns by the proper officer who issues ASMT-10 on discrepancies; the registered person responds in ASMT-11; closure or escalation follows. Audit is broader — Section 65(5) permits examination of the books, returns, statements, declarations and other documents to verify correctness of turnover declared, taxes paid, refund claimed and ITC availed, plus assessment of compliance with the Act. Inspection under Section 67 is targeted enforcement upon reason-to-believe of tax evasion and is invasive — premises access, seizure of records and goods. The OECD Forum on Tax Administration's compliance-pyramid model recommends graduated escalation from desk review to field audit to inspection, and the Indian framework broadly mirrors that design.

Self-certification under GSTR-9C and its audit interplay

Until Finance Act 2021 amendments, Section 35(5) had required certification of GSTR-9C by a Chartered Accountant or Cost Accountant for registered persons whose aggregate turnover exceeded the prescribed threshold. The Finance Act 2021 substituted Section 35(5) and amended Section 44, shifting GSTR-9C to a self-certified reconciliation statement filed by the registered person without third-party attestation, effective FY 2020-21 onwards (Notification 29/2021-CT). The reconciliation in GSTR-9C between audited financial statements and GSTR-9 annual return is now an internal-control disclosure; it does not substitute for departmental audit under Section 65. Audit teams treat GSTR-9C self-certified reconciliations as primary working papers — Table 5 (turnover reconciliation), Table 9 (tax payable reconciliation) and Table 12-14 (ITC reconciliation) become the starting points of Section 65 audit interrogation.

Rule 56 stock records

Sectoral application of Rule 56(18) — jewellery, precious metals

Rule 56(18) applies to a narrow but high-revenue-risk band of trades — precious metals, precious stones, jewellery — where stock-record granularity is essential because of the high unit-value and pilferage-risk profile. The daily quantity-wise register must capture purity (in carats for gold), weight (in grams or pennyweights), make-charges component, hallmarking certificate references (BIS hallmark unique identification), and customer-wise sale-bill traces. Family-run jewellery businesses in particular often default to consolidated weekly or monthly stock summaries; this gap is the most common audit finding in jewellery-sector Section 65 audits in Tamil Nadu. Coordinated compliance with TCS under Section 206C(1F) at 1% on sales above ₹2 lakh adds an income-tax overlay to the stock-records architecture.

Stock-record obligations under Rule 56(2) and Rule 56(18)

Rule 56(2) of the CGST Rules requires every registered person, other than a person paying tax under Section 10 (composition), to maintain accounts of stock in respect of goods received and supplied — showing opening balance, receipt, supply, goods lost, stolen, destroyed, written off or disposed of by way of gift or free sample, and balance of stock including raw materials, finished goods, scrap and wastage. Rule 56(18) imposes a higher-granularity obligation on registered persons dealing in goods of the kinds notified — currently primarily precious metals, precious stones and jewellery — requiring daily quantity-wise and value-wise stock registers. The granularity differential between Rule 56(2) and Rule 56(18) reflects the sector-specific revenue-risk assessment that has been part of Indian indirect-tax administration since pre-GST excise.

Reconstruction of stock records during audit

Where stock records under Rule 56(2) are incomplete or absent — a common scenario in SME manufacturing and trading — reconstruction during the ADT-01 fifteen-day window is the standard response. The reconstruction sources include purchase invoices and GSTR-2A entries (for inward stock), GSTR-1 outward supplies (for sales), e-way bill data (for stock movements), bank statements (for cash purchases or sales not invoiced through GST channels), and stock-take working papers from the statutory audit under the Companies Act or Section 44AB income tax audit. Reconstruction must be contemporaneous with the original transaction dates; backdated reconstruction is treated as fabrication by the audit team. The Tapas Dutta v UoI line of authority on retrospective records is occasionally invoked, but registered persons should not rely on it as a safe harbour.

GSTR-9C self-certification interplay with audit

Self-certification risk and director / signatory liability

The shift to self-certification has not reduced substantive accuracy expectations — Section 47(2) penalty for late filing applies, Section 35(5) (as amended) read with Section 122 attracts penalty for incorrect particulars, and Section 137 imposes personal liability on directors, partners and managers for company offences subject to the proviso on diligence. The signatory's diligence in reviewing the underlying GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C contents is now a personal-liability risk, where previously the CA / CMA certifier's professional liability provided an intermediating layer. The OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines' principle of taxpayer self-assessment with audit verification is well-served by the self-certification design, but it shifts more responsibility onto the registered person's internal-control architecture.

Optional GSTR-9C and tactical considerations

For registered persons whose aggregate turnover is between ₹2 crore and ₹5 crore (where GSTR-9 is optional under Notification 47/2019-CT and similar; GSTR-9C threshold is above ₹5 crore), the strategic question is whether to file GSTR-9 and GSTR-9C voluntarily. Voluntary filing provides a contemporaneous reconciliation record that strengthens the audit-defence position; non-filing leaves the audit team to compute reconciliation themselves from primary records, often less favourably. The GST Council 47th Chandigarh and 53rd meetings have periodically rationalised these thresholds; the Empowered Committee 2009 First Discussion Paper had envisaged annual-return-as-integrating-layer architecture that the current threshold-based structure has partially diluted.

Self-certification regime from FY 2020-21

Notification 29/2021-CT and the Finance Act 2021 substitution of Section 35(5) shifted GSTR-9C from CA / CMA attested certification to self-certification by the registered person, effective from financial year 2020-21 onwards. The reconciliation statement now bears the signature of the registered person or the authorised signatory; the previous Part B CA-CMA certification has been dropped. The substantive contents of GSTR-9C — Part A (reconciliation between audited financial statements and GSTR-9, covering turnover Table 5, taxable value Table 7, tax payable Table 9, ITC Tables 12-14) and Part B (auditor certification, now omitted) — are otherwise broadly retained. The threshold for GSTR-9C continues to be aggregate turnover above ₹5 crore, per Notification 16/2022-CT.

Section 67 inspection and its relation to audit

Audit-to-inspection escalation patterns

In practice, Section 65 audit findings escalate to Section 67 inspection where the audit team identifies indicators of deliberate evasion — fake invoicing patterns, circular trading rings, ITC claimed against suppliers whose registrations are cancelled or who have nil GSTR-3B filings (Suncraft Energy and downstream judicial line), classification mis-applications that appear deliberate. The escalation is not automatic; the proper officer must form a fresh reason-to-believe under Section 67(1) and record reasons. The Pradeep Goyal (Supreme Court on DIN — Document Identification Number for tax notices) framework requires the inspection authorisation to bear a valid DIN, failing which the action is voidable. The GKN Driveshafts (India) v ITO principle on opportunity-of-being-heard before invasive action is occasionally invoked but its application in the Section 67 context is restricted.

Procedural safeguards under Section 67(2) to 67(10)

Section 67(2) requires that search and seizure shall be carried out in the manner prescribed under Rule 139; provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1973 relating to search and seizure apply mutatis mutandis (Section 67(10)). Section 67(7) provides that goods so seized shall be returned within six months extendable by six months for sufficient reasons. Section 67(8) preserves the registered person's right to make copies of the seized documents. The procedural safeguards exist; the OECD Forum on Tax Administration recommends similar safeguards as part of the taxpayer-rights framework. In practice, the Bharti Airtel v UoI and Suncraft Energy v Asst Commissioner lines of authority have shaped the procedural-fairness review of Section 67 actions in writ jurisdiction before the Madras High Court and other High Courts.

Comparative framework — pre-GST excise / service tax and current GST

Pre-GST, the Central Excise Act Section 14 provided summons power, Section 18 search power, and Section 12F seizure power. Service tax under the Finance Act 1994 had similar provisions under Sections 82 (search) and 73 (recovery). The GST framework consolidates these into Section 67 with unified procedural architecture. The Empowered Committee 2009 First Discussion Paper had envisaged a single-window enforcement architecture replacing the fragmented pre-GST regime; Section 67 substantively delivers that design. Comparative OECD International VAT/GST Guidelines emphasise that enforcement powers should be calibrated to the gravity of the suspected evasion, and the Indian framework's reason-to-believe-plus-Joint-Commissioner-rank gating mechanism aligns with that principle.

Section 65 audit defended on stock variance for a {{area_name}} FMCG distributor

Section 65 audit on credit-note disclosure defended for a {{area_name}} consumer electronics distributor

Section 65 audit on Section 15(3) discount treatment defended for a {{area_name}} consumer durables seller

Diya Agencies principle extended at Section 65 audit for a {{area_name}} hardware trader

Other Services in TVS Avenue Ambattur, Chennai

What TVS Avenue Ambattur Clients Say