Tamil Nadu pani puri vendor receives UPI payments of over Rs 40 lakh in a year, gets GST notice: Report

Another day, another reason for many to question their career choices, this time because of a pani puri vendor who received a GST notice over the high amount of payments he received in between 2023 and 2024.

A street food vendor received a GST notice dated 17-12-2024 asking him to appear in person and to produce documents based on the reports recovered by from RazorPay and Phonepe claiming that he had received payments of over Rs 40 lakh for the year 2023-2024.

"Further analysis shows that you have not registered under the provisions of TNGST Act, 2017..." the notice read.

The post has gone viral on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) where netizens are questioning their pay in corporate jobs.

"Time to change the profile 😂", commented one user, while another said: "That's higher salary than a professor in many medical colleges, who are taxed on slab. The Pani Puri guy can add GST to his bills and pay the Govt. However he will lose to competition whose bill will be lower. The taxman action would push people into cash transactions!!!"

Meanwhile, several users pointed out that the Rs 40 lakh received by him is his revenue and not income.

"He is not making 40lakhs profit that is his revenue, there is difference between revenue & income. Revenue minus expenditure is income/profit."

Some even noted that the payments received mentioned in the GST notice only account for the ones he got via UPI transactions and the cash he has been making is still unaccounted for.

"This is just UPI translation, still 30% of the people would use cash. Now imagine the money he has made without paying any income tax," a user wrote on the post.