GST: E-way bills- Another addition to Compliance Burden

CA Mohammad Asif Mansoory

The E-Way Bill Rules released by Government puts an end to the dream of free movement of Goods under the GST regime and keeping the check post raaj alive.  The industry was however, expecting some regulations around the movement of goods and therefore the introduction of e-way bill rules does not come as a complete shocker.

The persons registered under GST causing movement of goods and the Transporters have been saddled with additional compliances to be made under these rules for any movement of goods.  The government has virtually made generation of e-way bills mandatory for any type of movement of goods where the value of consignment is more than INR 50,000, which has been listed below:

• Movement of goods in relation to a Supply or for reasons other than supply ie movement of goods for job work, repairs etc
• Inward supply of goods from an unregistered person to a registered person
• For all types of goods ie for taxable as well as for those exempted under GST
• Any type of movement of goods whether it is inter-state or intra-state

Generation of E-way bill

The e-way bill is to be generated in Form GST INS-01 electronically on the common portal.  The e-way bill is generated after populating the required details in Part A and Part B of the Form GST INS-01.  The Person liable for filing Part A, Part B and generation of e-way bill under different scenarios has also been provided in the e-way bill rules.  The said compliance has been linked to the persons causing movement of goods and the mode of movement ie whether by the said person through owned or hired conveyance or by handing over the goods to the transporter.

* For the purpose of these rules, in case where goods are supplied by unregistered person to a registered recipient; it shall be deemed that the said movement has been caused by the registered person.

In addition to the above, the transporter shall be liable for generation e-way bill in the following situations as well:

• Where the transporter transfers goods from one conveyance to another in the course of transit.  The new e-way bill has to be generated in Form GST INS-01, before such transfer and further movement of goods

• Where multiple consignments are intended to be transported in a single conveyance, the transporter shall generate a consolidated e-way bill in Form GST INS-02

Lastly, the e-way bill rules also provide an option for generating the e-way bill where the consignment value is less than INR 50,000.

Validity of e-way bill

The e-way bill generated as above, may be cancelled if the goods are not being transported or are not being transported as per the details furnished in the e-way bill within 24 hours of generation of the e-way bill.  However, such cancellation would not be allowed if the conveyance has been verified/ inspected by the officers.

The validity of the e-way bill, which may be extended by the Commissioner has been tabulated as under:

Documents and devices to be carried with the conveyance

The person in charge of the conveyance shall carry the following:

• The invoice or bill of supply or delivery challan, as the case may be: and

[In case where the Supplier generates an Invoice Reference Numbers (‘IRN’) from the common portal by uploading the Tax Invoice in Form GST INV-1; the IRN could be produced for verification in lieu of the physical copy of the documents.  The IRN can only be obtained for supply of taxable goods and therefore for all other cases, the physical copy of the document would be mandatory]

• A copy of the e-way bill or the e-way bill number

[If the e-way bill number has been mapped to the Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) embedded in the conveyance, then copy of the e-way bill is not required to be carried]

Verification of documents & conveyance

• The Commissioner/ Empowered officer may authorize proper officer to intercept any conveyance to verify e-way bill for all inter-state and intra-state movement of goods

• Where physical verification has been done during transit at any place in any state, no further verification to be carried out unless specific information of tax evasion is made available subsequently

Other miscellaneous provisions

• Where a vehicle has been intercepted and detained for a period exceeding thirty minutes, the transporter may upload the said information in FORM GST INS- 04 on the common portal

• Details populated in Part A of Form GST INS-01 shall be made available to registered supplier on common portal

• Part A of GST INS-01 to be auto-populated from GST INV-1

Remarks

The e-way bill rules have casted tremendous compliance requirement on the registered persons who would cause movement of goods whether as a supplier or receiver and in case where the goods are inwarded from unregistered persons.  Further, by covering the intra-state movement within the purview of e-way bills, the compliance burden would significantly increase.

The accounting system/ ERP etc should be robust enough to directly populate the requisite details on the common portal to avoid any delay in generation of e-way bills as it would be a real time activity.  This would mean additional investment is technology which would directly affect the working capital for medium and small enterprises.

It would be imperative for the Transporters to determine their level of compliance when transporting goods on behalf of a registered person vis a vis an unregistered person and where the value of consignment exceeds INR 50,000.

Further, the validity of the e-way bill does not seem to be commensurate with the country’s infrastructure and therefore could pose the bigger challenge for multi-modal movement of goods.  In any case, the rules also do not provide any remedial measures where the validity of the e-way bill expires in transit.

It is expected that the consignment value as mentioned in the document carried along with the conveyance in case of movement of goods otherwise than by way of supply on behalf of the registered persons and for all types of movement of goods on behalf of the unregistered persons are duly accepted by the officers at the check post.  Otherwise, it would create more problems than the solutions that are expected from GST.

(Author can be reached at [email protected])

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