Cold storages and agro-processing units around Basti have a season, a gate, and a set of farmers or traders who do not all want a GST invoice. The law does not have a season. The books have to hold both facts.
What is being supplied
A cold storage may be supplying a storage service (GST on services, with exemptions that have existed for certain agricultural produce — always confirm the present notification), or it may be trading the produce it stores, or both. Mixing the two without saying so is how input credit and exemption claims both fail. Milling is a job-work or a manufacture, depending on who owns the paddy. Write it down.
Inventory and the tax audit
Bags in, bags out, weight loss, germination, and the owner’s versus the store’s stock must be separable. Form 3CD’s quantitative particulars will not accept a single closing number invented in September. Electricity is a large cost; it should be allocable.
Capital subsidy and the block of assets
When a subsidy towards capital cost is received, the Act has a view on whether it reduces the actual cost of the asset. Treating it as a casual gift in the proprietor’s capital account is a later assessment. Keep the sanction letter with the fixed-asset register.
See Basti and Udyam registration.