The Employer’s Certificate of Registration

The two certificates, before anything else

Section 5 creates two different certificates and they are constantly confused.

A firm with employees needs both: a PTRC for the employees' tax and, because a firm is excluded from the charge by section 3(2), no PTEC of its own, while each partner needs his own PTEC under entry 19(a).

This chapter is the PTRC. The next is the PTEC.

The obligation

Section 5(1):

Every employer (not being an officer of Government) liable to pay tax under section 4 or under sub-section (5) of section 10A shall obtain a certificate of registration from the prescribed authority in the prescribed manner.

"Liable to pay tax under section 4" means liable to deduct the tax of an employee and pay it over. An employer with no employee liable to the tax needs no PTRC. An employer whose only worker is a man earning Rs. 6,000 a month, below the Rs. 7,500 threshold in entry 1, is not liable under section 4 and need not register.

"Not being an officer of Government" takes government offices out of the registration requirement, though not out of the duty to deduct.

The time limit

Section 5(3) sets it, and the figure is thirty days:

Every employer or person required to obtain a certificate of registration or enrolment shall, be within thirty days from the date of first publication of this Act in the Official Gazette or, if he was not engaged in any profession, trade, calling or employment on that date, within thirty days of his becoming liable to pay tax ... apply for a certificate of registration or enrolment, or a revised certificate of enrolment, as the case may be, to the prescribed authority in the prescribed form

Thirty days of becoming liable. For a new firm that hires its first employee above the threshold, the clock starts on the day of the hiring.

And the authority must decide within thirty days of receiving the application, if the application is in order.

The procedure

The application is made electronically on the mahagst.gov.in portal, which is the Department of Goods and Services Tax's own site and carries the profession tax registration alongside the GST registration.

1. Open the portal and choose new registration under the Profession Tax Act.
2. Enter the PAN of the employer, which is the firm's PAN for a partnership.
3. Complete the e-mail and mobile verification.
4. Fill the application with the constitution of the business, the address of the place of business, the date on which liability arose, the number of employees and their salary bands, and the bank details.
5. Upload the documents.
6. Submit and receive the acknowledgement.
7. Receive the certificate of registration, carrying an eleven-digit PTRC number, which is the PAN-based tax identification number of the employer suffixed with the letter P.