GST registration is the most crucial requirement for the identification of taxpayers. It confers on a taxpayer certain privileges and rights which an unregistered taxpayer does not possess. Therefore, the Indian government has designed the GST registration process to include a post-registration field visit to the taxpayer’s premises based on certain risk parameters.
In the Post Registration Field Visit, the tax authorities visit the taxpayer’s premises, i.e., its principal place of business or additional place of business or both, after granting the GST registration to the taxpayer. This field visit confirms that the taxpayer applying to deal with goods or services is evaluated and validated carefully and faultlessly.
This visit could include:
The post-registration field visit would be conducted by a Field Visit Officer to whom such task is assigned.
Taxpayers, who are subject to Post Registration Field Visit
Categories of taxpayers who are subject to post-registration field visit:
For a post-registration field visit, the Field Visit Officer should preferably visit between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Before the post-registration field visit takes place, a taxpayer should ensure that all the necessary records and documents are available for inspection by the visiting team. A taxpayer should provide the visiting officials with all the supplementary information they ask for.
A Field Visit Report will be submitted once the Field Visit Officer conducts the post-registration field visit. Once the tax authorities are satisfied with the report, they will close the Field Visit. If the tax authorities aren’t satisfied with the report, they could re-initiate another Field Visit or could initiate the cancellation of the taxpayer’s GST Registration.
A taxpayer could check whether the Field Visit has been performed or not on the GST portal. Once logged in, the taxpayer needs to navigate to the ‘My Profile’ section. If a field visit has been conducted for the taxpayer’s GSTIN, ‘Field Visit Conducted?’ will be displayed as ‘Yes’.