Amazon Seller GST Compliance Guide with TallyPrime
Selling on Amazon puts you inside one of the most data-rich corners of the GST system: the marketplace reports your supplies, collects tax at source against your GSTIN, and your buyers' returns cross-reference yours. That visibility cuts both ways — compliance is easier because the data exists, and non-compliance is more visible for the same reason. This guide maps the recurring obligations and shows how disciplined Tally books make each one routine. It is an orientation, not advice: your CA should confirm every filing position for your facts.
Registration: the non-negotiable entry ticket
Supplying goods through an e-commerce operator that collects TCS requires GST registration regardless of turnover — the usual threshold exemption does not apply to marketplace goods sellers. Two registration questions then follow for growing sellers: additional state registrations when you store inventory in FBA warehouses in other states (covered in depth in multi-state GST and place of supply), and keeping every GSTIN's books separate — in Tally terms, typically one company per GSTIN. Your CA should confirm which states your FBA enrolment actually triggers.
The monthly compliance loop
| Task | Data source | Books dependency |
|---|---|---|
| GSTR-1 (outward supplies) | MTR B2C and B2B | Sales vouchers and credit notes imported invoice-accurately |
| GSTR-3B (summary and payment) | Books + GSTR-1 workings | Output liability and eligible ITC both current |
| TCS credit acceptance | GST portal TDS/TCS facility | TCS receivable ledger reconciled to settlements |
| ITC on Amazon fees | Fee invoices, GSTR-2B | Fee GST booked separately from fee expense |
The pattern across all four rows: the filing is easy when the books already contain the answer. GSTR-1 preparation is painful only when sales were never imported invoice-wise; TCS acceptance is confusing only when nobody booked the settlement TCS rows.
GSTR-1: let the MTR do the work
The MTR contains everything GSTR-1 needs from Amazon sales — invoice numbers and dates, taxable values, rate-wise IGST/CGST/SGST, place of supply from Ship To State, and Refund rows for credit notes. Imported faithfully (the mechanics are in how to import the Amazon MTR into TallyPrime), Tally's GSTR-1 view becomes a check, not a preparation exercise: compare it with the MTR summary, explain any difference, file. B2B rows need the extra care of buyer GSTINs, since your buyers' input credit depends on them.
TCS: the credit you must actively claim
Amazon's 0.5% TCS under section 52 lands on the portal awaiting your acceptance — it does not offset anything automatically. Monthly, accept the TCS through the portal's credit-received facility, reconcile against your TCS receivable ledger from the settlement files, and chase gaps while they are one cycle old. The mechanics and the matching 194-O TDS treatment are detailed in Amazon TCS and TDS accounting.
Audit-readiness: the records that answer questions
- The original MTR and settlement files, archived monthly — your books should be reproducible from them.
- Order-level reconciliation between sales, settlements, and bank, with the in-transit list at each month end.
- Amazon's fee invoices supporting every rupee of ITC claimed.
- A credit-note trail linking each one to its original invoice.
- An exception log: what was odd, what you decided, who approved it.
That last item is where a review workflow earns its keep. TallySutra's Amazon to Tally pipeline keeps source files, generated vouchers, exceptions, and the CA approval trail connected, so the answer to any question about a figure is a click deep rather than an excavation. What no software should do is decide your tax positions — rates, disclosures, and registrations stay between you and your CA; the software's job is to make the underlying data unarguable.
Beyond the monthly loop: periodic obligations that reward early preparation
Two longer-cycle obligations lean entirely on the monthly discipline. The annual return consolidates a full year of outward supplies, credit notes, and ITC — trivial to compile from twelve reconciled months, miserable to reconstruct from twelve approximate ones, and your CA will confirm which annual forms apply at your turnover. Departmental scrutiny is the other: e-commerce sellers face data-matching between their returns, the marketplace's TCS reporting, and their buyers' filings, so discrepancies rarely need an officer to hunt for them — the system surfaces mismatches on its own. The seller who can produce, for any queried month, the original MTR, the settlement files, the order-level reconciliation, and the exception log answers most notices with attachments rather than anxiety. That is the compounding return on the monthly loop: each clean close is small, but a year of them converts every future compliance event from investigation into retrieval, and materially shortens the billable hours your CA spends on anything historical.
Frequently asked questions
I sell only through Amazon with small turnover — do I still need GST registration?
For goods sold through a TCS-collecting marketplace, registration is mandatory irrespective of turnover — the threshold exemption available to ordinary small businesses does not cover marketplace goods sellers. Amazon also requires a GSTIN to list taxable goods. If your situation involves exempt goods or other nuances, confirm the position with a CA before assuming any relief applies.
My GSTR-1 turnover and the TCS shown by Amazon on the portal disagree — which is right?
Neither is automatically right; they measure slightly different things on different timings. TCS is collected on net taxable supplies per Amazon's settlement calendar, while your GSTR-1 follows invoice dates, and refunds adjust the two differently. Reconcile monthly between the MTR, settlement TCS rows, and portal figures, document timing items, and escalate genuine mismatches with your CA.
Can TallySutra file my GST returns?
No — TallySutra does not file GST returns. Its job ends at accurate, reconciled books: converting your uploaded Amazon reports into balanced TallyPrime vouchers with an exception and approval trail. Filing happens through your existing process — Tally's GST reports, your CA, or filing software — working from books that finally match the marketplace data underneath them.
TallySutra turns Amazon, Flipkart and Meesho reports into reconciled, reviewed TallyPrime vouchers — duplicate-safe, with every rupee traceable to its source row.
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