CARRA Associates

28/08/2026

26/08/2026

Your accountant claimed it. Section 17(5) says no.

Six categories where input tax credit is blocked no matter how genuine the spend:

→ Motor vehicles seating 13 or fewer, plus their insurance and repairs — unless used for further supply, passenger transport, or driving instruction
→ Food, beverages, outdoor catering, club and gym membership — unless statutorily obligatory for the employer
→ Gifts and free samples, and goods lost, stolen or written off
→ CSR expenditure, blocked with effect from 1 October 2023
→ Construction of immovable property, when capitalised — plant and machinery excepted
→ Personal consumption, and inward supplies from a composition dealer

The one that catches most businesses is the third. Diwali hampers are gifts. The credit is blocked — and above ₹50,000 per employee in a financial year it becomes a deemed supply under Schedule I, so GST is payable on the gift itself.

Every one of these gets claimed somewhere. And reversed at the audit, with interest under Section 50.

We check all six before you file.

Comment BLOCKED and I'll send you the checklist.

26/08/2026

Once a year, a king comes back to check that his people are well-fed, at peace, and have nothing to hide.

That's the whole story of Onam. And it's the whole job of a good finance team.

Happy Thiruvonam from all of us at CARRA. May your table be full and your books be in order.

25/08/2026

He shipped ₹10 lakhs of goods in April and raised the invoice the same day. On 20 May he paid ₹1,80,000 of GST on it — out of his own bank, for money he had not received.

Then the customer went quiet.

Here's the part that breaks people: there is no bad debt relief in GST. Section 34 doesn't let you raise a credit note because someone refused to pay — it covers deficiency, return and excess charge. That ₹1,80,000 is gone permanently.

But he was holding three things he never used.

One. Second proviso to Section 16(2) with Rule 37 — if his customer hasn't paid within 180 days of the invoice date, the customer must reverse that ITC in the next period's GSTR-3B, with interest under Section 50(1).

Two. He's a Udyam-registered small enterprise. Under Section 15 of the MSMED Act, 45 days is the legal maximum, 15 if there's no written agreement — and Section 16 runs compound interest at three times the RBI bank rate. That interest is not deductible for the buyer.

Three. If it's overdue under MSMED and still unpaid on 31 March, the buyer loses the deduction on the entire ₹10 lakhs. That was Section 43B(h); from 1 April 2026 it's Section 37(2)(g) of the Income-tax Act 2025. CPC now auto-flags the mismatch against tax-audit disclosures.

Add it up. Not paying an ₹11.8 lakh invoice costs that buyer over ₹5 lakh.

You're not asking for a favour. You're holding his deadline.

Comment RECOVER and I'll send you the letter we send.

— CARRA Associates LLP · Finance · Control

Illustrative — worked example at a 25% tax rate.

23/08/2026

Someone he had never met typed his GSTIN into their return.

₹4,20,000. For goods he never bought.

The invoice landed in his IMS dashboard on the 6th. He didn't log in. On the 14th, GSTR-2B generated — and the invoice was inside it.

Not because he accepted it. Because he didn't reject it.

From 1 April 2026, the Invoice Management System (IMS) is mandatory. Every invoice a supplier uploads against your GSTIN sits in your dashboard waiting for one of three actions — Accept, Reject, Pending. Do nothing, and the system treats silence as acceptance.

And once GSTR-2B generates for that period, it is locked. You cannot undo it.

What this means for you:
• Check your IMS dashboard before the 14th of every month
• Reject invoices you don't recognise — immediately, not "later"
• A stranger's entry can become YOUR tax problem if you stay silent

Your silence signs it.

Comment "REJECT" and we'll send you the weekly IMS checklist we use for our own clients.

— CARRA Associates LLP · Finance · Control

Illustrative scenario. Figures are not from any client file.

21/08/2026

Varamahalakshmi.

May Goddess Lakshmi bless your home with prosperity, health and peace. 🪔

Wishing you and your family a blessed Varamahalakshmi Vrata.

— CARRA Associates LLP

#ವರಮಹಾಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ

15/08/2026

80 years of independence.

For a business, independence has a balance sheet: cash you don't owe anyone, books that tell the truth, and decisions made on numbers you actually trust.

That's the freedom we work for — every ledger, every filing, every client.

Happy 80th Independence Day. 🇮🇳

07/08/2026

You claimed input tax credit in GSTR-3B. Your supplier hasn't filed — so it isn't in your GSTR-2B.

You think nobody will notice. The portal already has.

Under Rule 88D, if the credit you claimed exceeds what GSTR-2B allows, the system issues Form DRC-01C on its own. No officer drafts it. You reply, or you pay.

And until you do — your next GSTR-1 is blocked.

Check 2B before you claim. Not after.

Comment ITC and we'll share the reconciliation checklist we run before every filing.