Experience under the existing Law
During the transition of Local Government General sales tax to State VAT and the subsequent initiatives of E Governance, similar to GST, many state Governments made various attempts. But they did not bring the desired result.
It appears, GST’s efforts are in the same direction. But the difference is under GST, the substantial portion of origin transactions are tracked electronically. Though this would contribute to a large extent to-wards the objective, the procedure to be followed and usage of Information technology in generation of form by the trade appears to be not to the expectation.
Also, some of the provisions like authorizing the check post officials to intercept and inspect the already verified vehicles in exceptional case, putting a lot more onus on transporter. Inclusion of the items not in the nature of GST supplies are against the initiatives of building a favourable momentum of GST implementation.
About the E way Bill
The features are extracted in tabular form for easy understanding.
E Way Draft Rule under GST for inter-state and intra-state movements of Goods | |
Who generates? | a) Person Causing movement of Goods – can be consignor or consignee b) Transporter can generate the E way bill if not generated by person as referred in (a) or in cases where enroute it has to transfer to another due to accident, permit or any other issues c) Transporter has to generate Eway bills for every consignment where multiple consignments involved in a single conveyance. A consolidated Eway bill Form GST ins 02 shall be generated by him. |
What is value of Consignment? | Rs. 50,000/- and above (Option with less than Rs. 50,000 value for registered person is also provided for) |
What goods are covered? | All supplies which includes supplies not covered by GST Inward supplies from unregistered persons |
What is the Format? | GST INS-01 Part-A – About Goods Part-B-Information about transporter & Vehicle |
What documents to accompany? | a) Invoice or Bill of supply or delivery challan |
b) Copy of E way Bill or E way Bill no physically or mapped to a Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) embedded into conveyance. | |
c) If the consignments are not covered by the supplies then copy of invoice/bill of supply/Bill of entry/Delivery Challan | |
Whether can be cancelled? | Can be cancelled within 24 hrs., if it has not been verified |
Whether can be rejected by receiver? | Recipient can accept or reject within 72 hrs. Else it is deemed to be accepted |
How many days valid? | Less than 100 Kms- 1 day |
100 to 300 Kms- 3 Days | |
300 to 500 Kms- 5 Days | |
500 to 1000 Kms-10 Days | |
More than 1000 Kms- 15 Days | |
Is there any alternative to E way bill generation? | A registered person may obtain an invoice, known as E bill no, from common portal by uploading his tax invoice which is valid for 30 days. |
Limitation of verification en-route | Once verified no further verification |
Conclusion: We hope the Government would amend the existing draft rules, more user friendly, while making no compromise on unlawful moments of goods, keeping in mind the past experience.