Compliance

Tax and GST rules every Indian SMB should keep track of

Tax rules for Indian businesses change often enough that a "current" list goes stale within a year. This page focuses on the handful of changes that keep recurring in different forms — so you know what kind of thing to watch for, and where to check the actual current figures rather than trusting a number on any blog, including this one.

E-invoicing thresholds: watch this one even if it's never applied to you

The turnover threshold above which e-invoicing (generating an IRN through the government portal for B2B invoices) is mandatory has been lowered in stages over successive years, each time pulling a new band of smaller businesses into the requirement. If your turnover is climbing toward whatever the current threshold is, this is worth checking before you cross it — the changeover affects how your invoices reconcile against your buyers' GSTR-2B, which connects directly to why a customer might hold back payment over a mismatch that used to be invisible to them.

GST rate changes on specific goods and services

GST rates on individual categories get revised periodically following GST Council meetings — sometimes as part of a broader rate rationalisation exercise, sometimes for a single sector. If you sell a product or service where the rate has recently changed, check whether it affects invoices already raised versus new ones, and whether any transitional provision applies to work in progress at the changeover date. This is a genuine source of billing errors when a rate change lands mid-month and half your invoices go out at the old rate by habit.

MSME classification and Udyam registration limits

The investment and turnover limits that define Micro, Small and Medium enterprises under the MSMED Act have been revised before, and the government has signalled openness to revising them again as part of periodic MSME policy reviews. This matters beyond a label — your classification determines whether Section 43B(h)'s 45-day rule protects you as a supplier, and whether your buyers' MSME payment obligations apply to invoices from you at all. If your business is growing, check whether you're still comfortably within the Small enterprise threshold or approaching Medium — the protections in the 43B(h) guide apply to Micro and Small, not Medium enterprises.

TDS and TCS rate and threshold changes

TDS rates on specific payment categories, and TCS on transactions like foreign remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme, get adjusted in Finance Act amendments most years. If you're deducting or collecting tax at source as part of routine vendor or customer payments, a rate you memorised two years ago is worth re-checking rather than assuming it's still current — this is one of the more common places an otherwise careful accounts team gets caught out, because the old rate "still works" in the software until someone notices the return doesn't reconcile.

The habit that actually protects you

None of the specific numbers above are worth memorising from this page — they change too often for that to be useful. What's worth building instead is a quarterly check-in with your CA specifically about "what changed this quarter that affects us," rather than only talking at return-filing time. The businesses that get caught out by a rate or threshold change are almost always the ones treating tax compliance as a once-a-quarter filing task instead of an ongoing one.

Next: How tax law affects MSME cash flow · Section 43B(h) explained · GSTR-2B mismatch