Set money aside as it arrives, keep the records that matter, and look the dates up yourself.
Nothing here is advice for you in particular. It is the shape of the job. A payer outside Bharat holds nothing back, so the setting aside is yours from the first payment. Selling a service abroad is zero-rated under GST, which is not the same as nothing to do. Registration starts at a turnover line, and an undertaking then lets the service go out with no tax paid first. The presumptive route counts half of your receipts as profit. The share set aside is the tax on that half. The bank's inward remittance paper, FIRC or FIRA on its site, proves the money came in foreign exchange. The numbers on these lines change, so read the current year yourself.
- A payer outside Bharat deducts nothing, so set the tax aside as money arrives.
- Keep invoices, bank statements, the inward remittance paper and a record of expenses.
- Look up dates on the tax department's own site, never on a forum.
TaskA year of payments from buyers abroad, every one arriving in full, with nothing held back for tax.
Weak approach Sets a quarter of each payment aside on a friend's word, and keeps every invoice. Files the return in July from the bank statement alone. Never asks the bank for its inward remittance paper, and never checks the turnover line. Crosses twenty lakh in month ten without knowing, and meets the word export in a notice the next year.
Stronger approach Moves a fixed share of each payment into a second account the same day. Works that share out from the presumptive rule: half of receipts is profit, and the tax falls there. Downloads the bank's inward remittance paper for every payment and files it beside the invoice. Watches the twenty lakh line, because registration for a service starts there. In a few states it is ten. Files the undertaking again each April, so the service goes out with no tax paid first. Reads the department's page for the presumptive limits, fifty lakh rupees and seventy-five. Writes the date read beside each number.
Why the stronger approach works The forum may even be right for somebody. It is not the department, and it will not answer for you. The weak attempt kept papers and still lost twice. It could not prove the money was foreign, and it did not see the line coming.
Try a changed situation A friend on a forum says freelancers below a certain limit need keep nothing at all. What do you do about your own papers?
Make something yourself Build your record-keeping sheet and enter three months of invoices and payments in it. Beside every rule you relied on, write the date you read it and the page you read it on. Do that for the registration line, the export undertaking and the presumptive limit. Look each one up by name on the department's page, not by a section number from an old post.