GST: E-Way Bill & other Documents to be carried by a carrier of goods

E-Way Bill & other Documents to be carried by a carrier of goods under GST

Under the proposed GST regime, movement of goods is going to be very a challenging and hectic issue both for the businessman and the professionals.

In case value of goods under movement exceeds Rs. 50,000/- , every supplier, recipient and the transporter has to generate the E-Way Bill in form GST INS-01, which has be carried by the carrier of goods during the movement of goods.

These E-Way Bills shall be valid for a limited period of time only. After which a fresh E-Way Bill has to be generated.

Who is required to generate E-Way Bill

Every registered person who causes movement of goods of consignment value exceeding Rs. 50,000/-  shall, before commencement of movement, furnish information relating to the said goods in Part A of FORM GST INS-01 (Part-A contains basically information about goods) [Rule 1]

Movement of goods may be

(i) in relation to a supply; or

(ii) for reasons other than supply; or

(iii) due to inward supply from an unregistered person.

Movement of Goods may be interstate or intra state i.e. E-waybill has to be generated in both the cases

Goods include exempt goods and good outside the purview of GST, so E-Way Bill has to be generated for all goods.

Where the goods are transported by the registered person as a consignor or the recipient of supply as the consignee, whether in his own conveyance or a hired one, the said person or the recipient may generate the e-way bill in FORM GST INS-01 after furnishing information in Part B of FORM GST INS-01; (Part-B contains information about transporter & the vehicle)

or

Where the e-way bill is not generated as above and the goods are handed over to a transporter, the registered person shall furnish the information relating to the transporter in Part B of FORM GST INS-01 and the e-way bill shall be generated by the transporter on the basis of the information furnished by the registered person in Part A of FORM GST INS-01.

For the value of consignment upto Rs. 50,000/- a registered person may still file E-way Bill, though it is optional  [proviso to Rule 1(1)(b)]

Where the goods are supplied by an unregistered supplier to a recipient who is registered, the movement shall be said to be caused by such recipient if the recipient is known at the time of commencement of movement of goods. [Explanation to Rule 1(1)]

E-way bill shall be assumed to be filled only after successful filing of both Part-A & Part-B. A unique e-way bill number (EBN) will be generated after successful filing of E-way Bill. [Rule 1(2)]

Documents and devices to be carried by a person-in-charge of a conveyance

[Rule 2(1)] The person in charge of a conveyance shall carry —

(a) the invoice or bill of supply or delivery challan, as the case may be; and

(b) a copy of the e-way bill or the e-way bill number, either physically or mapped to a Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) embedded on to the conveyance. FORM GST INS-01 in Part-A & Part-B (if applicable)

Where circumstances so warrant like where the goods are transported other than by way of supply, the Commissioner may, require the person-in-charge of  conveyance to carry tax invoice/bill of supply/ bill of entry/delivery challan instead of the e-way bill [Rule 2(5)]

Other Points to remember:

In case transporter has to shift/transfer the goods from one conveyance to another due to any reason, say accident, some fault in conveyance, technical issues or  permit issues, Then transporter has to fill fresh FORM GST INS-01. [Rule 1(3)]

Where multiple consignments are intended to be transported in one conveyance, the transporter shall indicate the serial number of e-way bills generated in respect of each such consignment and a consolidated e-way bill in FORM GST INS-02 shall be generated by him. [Rule 1(4)]

Where multiple consignments are transported in one conveyance and some consignor has not generated FORM GST INS-01 (may be due to the reason that his consignment value is less than Rs. 50,000/-) and however the total value of goods carried in the conveyance for all consignments is more than fifty thousand rupees, the transporter shall generate FORM GST INS-01 on the basis of invoice or bill of supply or delivery challan, as the case may be, and also generate a consolidated e-way bill in FORM GST INS-02 prior to the movement of goods. [proviso to Rule 1(4)]

In case goods are not sent or there are some changes in nature, quantity etc fo goods sent, the e-way bill may be cancelled within 24 hours of generation. However in case it has been verified in transit by GSTofficers then it cannot be cancelled. [Rule 1(6)]

Validity of E-way Bills [Rule 1(7)]

The recipient of goods shall communicate his acceptance or rejection of the consignment covered by the e-way bill. Where the recipient does not communicate his acceptance or rejection within seventy two hours of the details being made available to him, it shall be deemed that he has accepted the said details. [Rule 1(8) & Rule 1(9)]

A registered person may obtain an Invoice Reference Number from the common portal by uploading, on the said portal, a tax invoice issued by him in FORM GST INV-01, and produce the same for verification by the proper officer in lieu of the tax invoice and such number shall be valid for a period of thirty days from the date of uploading.  Also in that case the information in Part A of FORM GST INS-01 shall be auto-populated on the basis of the information furnished in FORM GST INV-01. [Rule 2(2) & Rule 2(3)]

RFID readers shall be installed at places where verification of movement of goods is required to be carried out and verification of movement of vehicles shall be done through such RFID readers where the e-way bill has been mapped with RFID. GST officers may also check E-Way Bills physically [Rule 3(2)]

Where the physical verification of goods being transported on any conveyance has been done during transit at one place within the State or in any other State, no further physical verification of the said conveyance shall be carried out again in the State, unless specific information relating to evasion of tax is made available subsequently. [Rule 4(2)]

The Government may, on the recommendations of the Council, notify the Common Goods and Services Tax Electronic Portal for facilitating registration, payment of tax, furnishing of returns, computation and settlement of integrated tax, electronic way bill and for carrying out such other functions and for such purposes as may be prescribed. [section 146 CGST Act]

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