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West Bengal set to roll out Intra-State E-way Bill on June 3

West Bengal set to roll out Intra-State E-way Bill on June 3

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West Bengal is likely to witness a 30-40 per cent rise in West Bengal set to roll out intra-State e-way bill on June 3revenue collection once the e-way bill for intra-State movement of goods is implemented, a senior official has said.

The State’s revenue collection increased by nearly 15 per cent after the implementation of e-way bill for inter-State movement of goods in April. The State is likely to roll out the implementation of e-way bill for intra-State movement of goods on June 3.

Technical glitches

West Bengal has seen close to 64,000 entities register for generation of e-way bills for inter-State transport of goods. The State has generated nearly 12 lakh e-way bills for goods moving out of the State till date, said Adesh Kumar, Additional Commissioner and PRO, Commercial Taxes.

“There were initially a few technical hurdles and that is why we deferred the rollout of e-way bill for intra-State transport of goods. We will roll it out on June 3,” Kumar told BusinessLine on the sidelines of a seminar on GST, organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Monday.

The State had earlier raised issues with the GST Council relating to difficulties in implementation of e-way bill.

Fewer complaints

Some of the issues included merger of multiple invoices into a single e-way bill, treatment of intra-State movement of goods through designated corridors and so on. According to Kumar, the number of complaints received from trade bodies regarding entry of goods ‘unrecorded’ has come down since the rollout of e-way bill in April and is further likely to decrease after its rollout for intra-State transport.

“Trade was suffering as goods were coming in unrecorded, which was impacting the prices of local products. Now with e-way bills that has been addressed to a great extent,” he said.

According to Arun Goyal, Special Secretary, GST Council, as many as 20 States have already implemented the e-way bill system. Goyal was also present at the seminar and was addressing the queries of various stakeholders.

The State has witnessed nearly 130 per cent growth in the number of entities registered under GST to close to 6.5 lakh, as against only 2.7 lakh under the VAT regime.

This also translated into better revenues. West Bengal registered a revenue surplus in State GST collections for March 2018. This is even while the country registered a SGST revenue deficit of 17.9 per cent for the period.

While revenue deficit across the country has come down from over 28 per cent in July 2017 to 17.9 per cent in March, West Bengal, which had a 33.4 per cent revenue deficit in August 2017; has now recorded a surplus.

Process simplification

According to Goyal, a number of amendments to the GST law, aimed to iron out bottlenecks, are likely to be moved in the monsoon session of Parliament.

The GST Council has also unveiled a new simplified return that would require a taxpayer to file only one return every month.

“The issue of simplification of return filing process was deliberated at length at the 27th GST Council meeting and we have given the GST Network around six months time to develop the requisite system,” Goyal said.

Source: The Hindu Business Line
GST: Country-wide intra-state e-way bill system mandatory from 3 June

GST: Country-wide intra-state e-way bill system mandatory from 3 June

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The e-way bill for moving goods within a state will become mandatory from 3 June, with the country-wide roll out of the mechanism.E-way bill software

The government had launched the electronic-way or e-way bill system from 1 April for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another.

The same for intra or within the state movement has been rolled out from 15 April.

So far, 20 states/Union Territories have made e-way bill mandatory for intra-state movement of goods. These states include — Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

In a letter to officers in the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Chairperson Vanaja Sarna said the intra-state movement of goods would be implemented throughout the country by 3 June, 2018.

Read More: All you need to know about EWay Bill System

“Hence, I would reiterate that the Chief Commissioners of the remaining zones should coordinate with the state authority and get the requisite notification issued as early as possible. Also, steps may be taken to publicise the date of its rollout along with exemptions provided,” Sarna wrote.

Sarna said the e-way bill system is functioning as envisaged and since the implementation of the same from 1 April, 2018, more than 4.5 crore e-way bills have been generated.

This includes more than 1.30 crore e-way bills for intra-state movement of goods.

While intra-state e-way bill requirement will become mandatory in the Union Territory of Lakshadweep and Chandigarh on 25 May, it will be rolled out in Punjab and Goa from 1 June. Maharashtra will roll out the bill from 31 May.

Touted as an anti-evasion measure, transporters of goods worth over Rs 50,000 would be required to present an e-way bill to a GST inspector, if asked. The measure is expected to help boost tax collections by clamping down on a trade that currently happens on the cash basis.

The GST Council, in March, decided on a staggered rollout of the e-way bill starting with inter-state from 1 April and intra-state from 15 April.

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Source: ET
GST – Eway bill: All you need to know and experiences

GST – Eway bill: All you need to know and experiences

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India has just announced the launch of another major reform under the GST regime. E-Way Bill : GSTAfter an aborted attempt in February, the government has finally managed to successfully roll out the E-way bill system for tracking goods movement under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1, 2018.

Eway bill is not a new phenomenon. It was prevalent in most states under the erstwhile VAT regime in the name of road permit, Eway bill, etc. It was used to monitor the movement of goods to/ from a state in order to check tax evasion. An eway bill is typically required to accompany goods on their movement from consignor to consignee.

Earlier, way bills were subject to state-specific rules and had to be generated through different state-specific portals.

Under GST, E-way bill is governed by a uniform set of rules applicable throughout the country. It is generated electronically on the e-way bill portal.

The e-way bill system creates a facility for transporters to raise complaints, in case a vehicle is detained for more than 30 minutes.

Read More: All you need to know about E-Way Bill System

However, some features of the new E-way bill vis-à-vis VAT way bill such as mentioning HSN on the E-way bill, limited validity etc. are not welcomed by businesses.

know about eway bill

The government, while proposing the idea of incorporating E-way bill under GST, had the intention of creating an effective tool for tracking movement of goods and ensure various benefits to the industry.

The steps included:

  • Abolition of check-posts
  • Seamless movement of goods within a state and across different state borders
  • Boost to India’s logistics ecosystem resulting in lesser traffic on major transportation routes
  • Reduction in transportation costs and lead time by replacing physical check posts with mobile squads

For every shipment of goods of the value of more than Rs 50,000 whether inter-state or intra-state, an E-way bill must be generated through an online portal, before the goods are shipped, and it should include specified details of goods, their consignors, recipients, and transporters.

The government is looking forward to implementing the E-way bill system across India in a phased manner latest by June 1, 2018, for both inter- and intra-state movement of goods.

E-way bill for inter-state movement of goods was implemented from April 1, 2018. Subsequently, E-way bill for intra-state movement of goods have also been introduced in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Tripura, and Uttarakhand.

While relatively smooth, there have been few challenges and concerns in the journey so far. For example, lack of functionality to update the details mentioned and acceptance of E-way bill by the recipient.

Extension of validity of E-way bill results in the generation of multiple Eway bill numbers against a single invoice, which could lead to duplication.

Further, the timeline provided for the extension, i.e. 4 hours before and after the expiry of validity, seems short. There is also no mechanism to track delivery and closure of transportation of goods on the portal.

The government has been working tirelessly to iron out the wrinkles in the process of implementation of the E-way bill system. In order to address these issues, the system should provide forthe modification of details entered in the E-way bill, an extension of validity without generation of new E-way bill number, facility to track the status, closure, and acceptance by the recipient of E-way bill and a reasonable time limit for extension of Eway bill.

For businesses with operations across the country, the system is likely to pose a fresh set of compliance challenges. Businesses having multiple movements of goods on a daily basis would need a software solution to generate the E-way bill in a timely manner and also enable reconciliation of E-way bill with the turnover.

The said solution should also enable tracking the E-way bills generated by suppliers of businesses so as to enable reconciliation of purchases with E-way bill. The same would ensure assistance during department audits and investigations.

E-way bill has already started gaining attention at the high courts in India. Recently, the Allahabad High Court held that seizure of the consignment of goods merely because the details of vehicles or the transport company were provided in handwriting after downloading of the e-way bill from the online portal is not tenable.

Also Read: Digital copy of E-way bill enough to give transporters right of way

The court also contended that since the invoices and the goods receipts issued by the transport company clearly indicate the details of the tax charged, the seizure is liable to be squashed. The importance was laid on the fulfillment of mandatory requirements provided under GST laws, and not on mere procedural lapses.

In another case, goods were moving locally between two offices of the same assessee without the state way-bill and were detained during transportation by the revenue officer. As soon as the assessee was informed of the non-compliance, assessee raised the Eway bill and submitted the same to the revenue officer.

On the filing of a writ petition by the assessee, the Kerala High Court held that detention of goods merely for infraction of the procedural rules in transactions, which do not amount to taxable supply, is without jurisdiction.

Both the aforesaid judgments show the clear intent of the high courts to protect the assessee from procedural non-compliances wherein government revenue is not impacted.

It will be interesting to see whether the state authorities will approach the apex court against the aforesaid orders.

An effective user-friendly E-way bill system has the potential to suppress the black marketing and check tax evasion. With the proposed daily capacity of 75 lakh E-way bills on the portal, businesses are hopeful that as more and more States are being brought under the ambit of intra-state E-way bill, the portal will have minimum downtime.


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Source: ET
GST: All you need to know about E-Way Bill System

GST: All you need to know about E-Way Bill System

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E-way bill is an online document generated by the govt portal www.ewaybillgst.gov.in evidencing movement of goods of consignment value more than Rs 50,000.

XaTTaX: Know about E-way Bill
The finance ministry of india has sought a report from GSTN (GST Network), the IT-backbone provider for GST, on glitches in the system that derailed the anti-tax evasion e-way bill system. Eway bill is aimed to bring uniformity across the states for seamless inter-state movement of goods.

Here are the key things to know about the online document:

What is an e-way bill?

Form GST EWB-01 (eway bill)  is an online document (available to supplier/recipient/transporter) generated on the common govt.portal (http://www.ewaybillgst.gov.in) evidencing movement of goods of consignment value more than Rs 50,000. It has two components –

Part A comprising of details of GSTIN of supplier and recipient, place of delivery (indicating PIN code also), document (Tax invoice, Supply Bill, Delivery Challan or Bill of Entry) number and date, a value of goods, HSN code, and reasons for transportation.

Part B comprising of transport details – transport document number (Goods/Items Receipt Number or Railway Receipt Number or Airway Bill Number or Bill of Lading Number) and Transport vehicle number for the road.

Who should generate e-way bill?

The Eway bill needs to be generated by the consignor or consignee (if the transportation is being done in own/hired conveyance or by railways by air or by vessel) or the transporter (if the goods are handed over to a transporter for transportation by road). When neither the consignor nor consignee generates the e-way bill and the value of goods is more than Rs 50,000, it will be the responsibility of the transporter to generate it.

Can users update their business name, address, mobile number or email-id in the e-way bill system?

The billing system will not allow updating the above details directly. The taxpayer has to change the details at GST Common portal, from where it will be updated in the e-way bill system.

Whether information submitted to the e-way bill can be used for filing GST returns?

The information furnished in the Part-A of the Electronic way bill on the common portal can be utilized for furnishing details in GSTR-1.

What is invoice reference number?

A registered person can obtain an Invoice Reference Number from the common portal by uploading the tax invoice issued in Form GST INV-1. The tax invoice and reference number will be valid for a period of 30 days from the date of uploading.

Can the e-way bill be canceled if the goods are not transported after generation of the e-way bill?

In cases where an e-way bill has been generated, but goods are either not being transported or are not being transported as per the details furnished in the e-way bill, the Eway bill can be canceled electronically on the common portal within 24 hours of generation.

What are the modes of e-way bill generation?

Apart from the option to generate the bill from the common portal, it can also be generated or canceled through SMS. When an Eway bill is generated, a unique e-way bill number (EBN) is allocated and is available to the supplier, recipient, and the transporter.

If you have any questions about GST or Eway bill system or would like to know how you can easily transition to GST with minimum disruption to your business, please write to marcom@sailotech.com or visit our site www.xattax.in

GST: 5 more States to implement E-way Bill from 25th April, 2018

GST: 5 more States to implement E-way Bill from 25th April, 2018

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Four more states, including Madhya Pradesh, and Union Territory of Puducherry will roll out the e-way bill for intra-state movement of goods from 25 April.

GST: Four states, Puducherry to roll-out intra-state e-way bill from 25 April

From 1 April, the government had launched the electronic way or e-way bill system for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another.

The same for intra or within the state movement has been rolled out from 15 April. So far 12 states have made e-way bill mandatory for intra-state movement of goods.

“Four more states — Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Meghalaya — and union territory of Puducherry will roll out intra-state eway bill from 25 April,” GSTN CEO Prakash Kumar told PTI in an interview.

The electronic way or e-way bill for inter-state movement of goods valued over Rs 50,000 was rolled out on 1 April. Karnataka was the sole state to start intra-state e-way bill on the same day.

The GST council had decided on a staggered rollout of intra-state e-way bill starting from 15 April with 5 states — Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.

Thereafter 6 more states — Bihar, Jharkhand, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Tripura — joined in from 20 April.

Also Read: How Eway bill fared in the first 15 days

Since the roll out of e-way bill for inter-state movement of goods from 1 April and intra-state from 15 April, more than 1.84 crore such bills have been generated till Sunday.

Kumar said the maximum number of e-way bills are generated on the portal in the second half of the day, particularly between 1600-1900 hours — accounting for one-third of the total generation of such bills during the day.

The maximum number of e-way bills (both inter and intra state) generated has touched 12 lakh on 21 April.

“So far the e-way bill portal is going on smoothly. The system has been designed to take load of generation of 75 lakh e-way bills during a day. The system has lot more capacity to take load that what is being generated as of date,” Kumar said.

Touted as an anti-evasion measure and would help boost tax collections by clamping down on trade that currently happens on cash basis, the e-way bill provision of the goods and services tax (GST) was first introduced on 1 February.

However, its implementation was put on hold after the system developed glitches in generating permits. With several states also starting to generate intra-state e-way bills on the portal, the system developed a snag.

Since then, the platform has been made more robust so that it can handle load of as many as 75 lakh inter-state e-way bills daily without any glitch.

XaTTaX: Your automated EWay bill compliance is just a click away!

Source: TOI
GST jigshaw: Why E-way bill is a vital piece of the puzzle

GST jigshaw: Why E-way bill is a vital piece of the puzzle

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An integral part of achieving the ‘no tax evasion’ objective of the goods & services tax (GST) has been the prescription of a requirement for e-way bill (electronic-way bill). E-way BillAkin to the pre-GST regime requirement of state permits for movement of goods into various states, the GST law has also contemplated a requirement of a document, e-way bill, for any movement of goods exceeding a consignment value of Rs 50,000. While the requirement of a document for movement has been inherited in the GST regime, the mechanics/technicalities have been significantly reformed with modifications like uniformity in the document for movement/entry into any state, primary liability in most cases being that of the supplier vis-à-vis the earlier recipient liability, requirement for all movement of goods irrespective of supply or not, etc.

The e-way bill requirement was originally slated for February 1 this year, but owing to the heavy load/technical glitches, the portal crashed within hours of its launch. To address the same, the government deferred the launch of the e-way bill system, citing technical glitches as the reason for such rescheduling. After well-assuring the stability of the system and adequate dry run, the government proposed a phased launch of the e-way bill system from April 1; with e-way bill being mandated only for interstate movements from April 1 and staggered launch for intrastate movements commencing with Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh from April 15.

XaTTaX: Your automated EWay bill compliance is just a click away!

Owing to the phased implementation and bolstering of the IT infrastructure for handling a higher load, the relaunch of the system has ensured upkeep of the government’s promise of a stabilised and centralised system for generation of e-way bills. Also, initiatives of the government to explain the technicalities of the e-way-bill-related rules including amendments to the rules for catering business requirements, creation of a central help-desk with 100 people exclusively to deal with queries related to e-way bills and state help-desks in local language are worthwhile to applaud.

While clarity on various issues has been provided through FAQs by the government like remedies for non-configured vehicle number formats, consignment refusal by a customer, bill-from dispatch-from scenarios, movement in SKD/CKD form, etc, some issues remain unclear, entailing apprehensions of unwarranted detention and requirement of bank guarantee by businesses. Of the various open issues, a significant area of concern has been on the mechanics of e-way bill generation in case of bill to ship to transactions—where while the goods are billed to ‘X’, the same may be shipped to either ‘Y’ or a different location of ‘X’. There is ambiguity on whether such movements would require issuing two e-way bills, i.e. by the shipping party as well as the bill to party.

Given that there is a single movement, the industry while seems to be inclined to a one e-way bill requirement, a different opinion by the revenue authorities could entail unnecessary hassles for businesses. Also, one e-way bill issuance would need to be included as a reconciliation item by the ‘bill to’ party on account of a mismatch between the e-way bill report and GSTR-1. A clarity on the said issue with prescription of a one e-way bill requirement would annul apprehensions of businesses, and also address issues like margins of the bill to party getting disclosed to the first seller and delay in shipments on account of lead time for obtaining e-way bills from the ‘bill to’ party.

Further, while FAQs explicitly clarified the mechanics for generation of e-way bills in SKD/CKD forms, technicalities for movement of consignments of a single invoice in multiple conveyances is still awaited. A clarity on the said issue could bring about uniformity in practices and deter any unwarranted hassles by GST officers.

E-way-bill-related rules contemplate deemed acceptance of a consignment by a recipient, where he does not communicate his acceptance or rejection within 72 hours of the details being made available to him or time of delivery of goods, whichever is earlier. While there is a provision for deemed acceptance in case of non-communication of a response, the same could become tedious where at the time of audits/inspection, businesses are required to provide a reconciliation of e-way bills generated for delivery to them and actual receipt of goods.

While the requirement of communicating a response for each consignment received by a business is in itself distressing, communicating a response before actual receipt of goods (where the delivery time is more than 72 hours) with no option of modifying the same is practically challenging.

Also, while the law provides for an option for cancelling an e-way bill generated for reasons like non-transportation or incorrect details, it is only allowed for a period of 24 hours from the generation of the e-way bill. The said provisions fail to address practical business scenarios, where a shipment may be cancelled on account of order cancellation by a customer after 24 hours of scheduled movement of goods, etc. While such cases could be reconciled and explained to the revenue authorities, any irrational action by lower-level authorities of not accepting such reconciliation with related demand notices could entail unwarranted harassment for businesses.

While these technical issues could be resolved with appropriate clarifications being issued by the government, given the significance of pragmatism in this compliance, there is a need for upholding the letter and spirit of e-way-bill-related rules by ground-level authorities.

Actions like interception and detaining of a vehicle for more than 30 minutes, recurrent stopping of vehicles for physical verification without intelligence, unnecessary hassles to the torch-bearers of business (the logistics industry), impeding movements, and imposing penalty for difference in opinion on consignment values, especially cases where the e-way bill has not been generated for movements on delivery challan and the value is declared at less than Rs 50,000, etc, could lead to a catastrophe for businesses.

While the efforts of the government to achieve the ‘one nation, one tax’ objective through standardisation of e-way bill for the entire country is appreciable, the performance of the IT infrastructure post the full-fledged roll out of the e-way bill compliance would be critical to assess the true accomplishment of the objective.

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Source: Financial Express
GST E-Way Bill – key pointers that you need to know

GST E-Way Bill – key pointers that you need to know

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GST e-way bill xattax

A lot of buzz has been generated recently around E-Way Bill as part of the GST compliance mechanism, similar to what Input Tax Credit has generated few months back with government all set to rollout this very soon. This blog provides an overview of GST E-Way Bill and its significance without getting much into the technical and operational aspects.

What is an E-Way Bill?

An E-way Bill is an electronic way bill that needs to be generated online (via GST portal) for movement of goods either for inter-state or intra-state sales. This E-Way bill needs to be raised before the goods are shipped and should include information such as details of the goods, their consignor, consignee and transporter. As support documents, a transporter needs to carry the invoice and the copy of the Eway Bill for goods, which are being transported.

Though check posts have been abolished under the new GST regime, a consignment can be intercepted at any moment during the goods transit for verifying the E-Way Bill. In case a transporter fails to show an E-Way Bill for the consignment, a penalty of Rs. 10,000 or tax sought to be evaded, whichever is greater can be levied.

GST offers flexibility to let any of the parties of a transaction, either the consignor or the consignee to generate the E-Way Bill, provided they are registered parties. Whatever may be the mode of transport of goods – either by air, rail or road, the E-Way Bill must be mandatorily generated. In a scenario, where goods are handed over to the transporter and neither of the parties – a consignor nor a consignee generates the E-Way Bill, the onus lies on the transporter to generate it.

When either of the parties generates the E-Way Bill, the recipient of the consignment is bound to either accept or reject it on the portal. In case there is no response (no action is taken) from the recipient within 72 hours, it shall be deemed to have been accepted. For generating an E-Way Bill from the portal, the registered party should have a portal login.

Also read: What is an e-way bill and why is it important?

Why is it important?

The primary objective of GST is to unify India with a common in-direct taxation system. One of the most significant aspects of GST is the removal of the inter-state check posts – particularly the transit delays encountered in some states like Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar or Jharkhand. It is expected that both the GST levy and E-Way Bill would weed out such transit delays and at the same time, helps in plugging issues related to tax evasion.

Technically speaking, every E-Way Bill that is generated by a consignor or a consignee is to be automatically updated in the GSTR1 (sales return) of the supplier, thus providing minimal scope for tax evasion on shipments. In the earlier tax regime, officials used to cross-check the way bills with the filed tax returns to verify whether all the consignments were covered within the tax net or not.

On the other hand, a single GST E-Way Bill for the movement of goods throughout the country is expected to save the lot of paperwork and do away with various inter-state clearances for consignors, consignees, and transporters. Earlier, every state used to frame its own rules for the transportation of goods from one place to another.

 Is it relevant to me?

As per a McKinsey report, logistical hurdles cost the Indian Economy an extra $45 billion or 4.3 per cent of GDP every year. Hence, any change in the existing regime that can provide even small benefits is appreciable. Also, the LPI Survey by World Bank states that the logistical costs in India are much higher (14%), compared to other major countries (6-8%). With the integration of GST E-Way Bill, it is expected that the logistics costs would get trimmed by 20 per cent. While the picture looks rosy on paper, it is completely dependent on the GST backbone to work perfectly to overcome any errors and mismatches, even when encountering heavy traffic.

Conclusion

What we expect is a smooth sailing for businesses through the introduction of this new GST E-Way Bill, despite minor glitches. This should become another milestone in the economic progress of the country, ensuring tax compliance at the highest level.

XaTTaX:  E-way Bill Software | GST Ready Invoicing Software | Generate GST Compliant Invoice‎