(1) Taxpayer shall, in such form and manner as may be prescribed, keep, for a period of 5 (five) years, all accounts, documents and other records of his economic activity so as to facilitate assessment of his tax liability and other obligations.

(2) Without prejudice to the extent of coverage of sub-section (1), the records maintained and accounts kept shall include the following documents, namely:–

(a) statements of purchase of goods, services or immoveable property, whether taxable or tax exempted and invoices related thereto;

(b) statements of sale of goods, services or immovable property;

(c) tax invoices, credit notes, debit notes, and ¹[***]tax invoices and withholding certificates issued and received by such person;

(d) customs documents relating to imports and exports of goods by such person;

(e) records showing at any particular time, the prices at which the person sells the goods manufactured by him, the input-output coefficient for such goods, and records of discounts offered by the manufacturer of such goods or credits;

(f) records relating to the supply of services subject to supplementary duty or the manufacture of goods subject to supplementary duty and related documents;

(g) treasury challan in support of the deposit of tax and where payment was made in ways other than by treasury challan, documentary evidence in support of such payments;

(h) returns for every tax period; and

(i) any other prescribed documents or records.

²[(2A) The registered person may store tax related documents, accounts and other records on the server with appropriate security through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software or VAT software prescribed by the National Board of Revenue.]

³[(3) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), documents related to any unfinished proceedings have to be preserved till disposal of the proceedings after the time mentioned in the above sub-section.]