Eway bill raises hopes for GST revenue
SMOOTH RIDE Eway bill system rolls out without any glitches in relief to businesses that feared trade disruptions
NEW DELHI: E -way bill, the electronic document required for movement of goods under the goods and services tax (GST) regime, was off to a successful start with more than 500,000 such documents generated till 7pm on the first working day of its implementation.
The rollout of e-way bill without any glitches came as a relief to businesses which were fearing trade disruptions.
With the successful rollout of the e-way bill, a key anti-evasion measure under GST is now in place. The government is hoping that this will help in boosting tax revenue.
Initially, e-way bill was made mandatory for all inter-state movement of goods valued above Rs50,000 from 1 February. However, the information technology network was unable to cope with the load, leading to long delays in the generation of e-way bills and forcing the government to defer the rollout to 1 April.
“GST revenues will pick up further as more compliances come in. E-way bill will help in checking tax evasion,” said finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia.
Though the central and state governments are giving taxpayers time to adjust to the new mechanism, tax authorities will begin checking trucks soon.
The government has been The government said on Monday that the re-introduction of the e-way bill system for GST has been smooth, with no technical glitches. The system was implemented from 1 April to regulate the inter-state movement of goods. 1 April 2 April Taxpayers
The system is a measure under GST The electronic record of movement of goods will help
The govt hopes tax Transporters
fearing massive tax evasion under GST after it postponed anti-evasion measures such as the e-way bill, matching of invoi- Phase-wise rollout for intra-state movement of goods
ces of buyers and sellers and a reverse charge mechanism wherein the large registered buyers have to pay tax on behalf of small unregistered sellers.
Adhia added that tax authorities have started the crackdown on tax evaders. Mint reported last week that the directorate general of GST intelligence had unearthed evasion amounting to Rs 440 crore in a pan-india operation.
Depending on the experience of rollout for inter-state, the e-way bill will be implemented for intra-state movement of goods from 15 April, said Adhia. “It will be rolled out in a phasewise manner with a few states implementing it initially,” he added.
The goods and services tax network ( GSTN) and the National Informatics Centre are handling the rollout of the e-way bill. The system is prepared to handle 7.5 million e-way bills daily and is generating 60,000 e-way bills per hour, said A.B. Pandey, chairman of GSTN .
However, transporters are still not confident about the government’s preparedness.
“Being the first working week in the new financial year, most companies were busy doing stock taking/accounting etc. Despatches historically are low in April and specially in the first few days. Due to this it was a good day on the e-way portal. Pressure was low and not many complaints were received,” said Abhishek Gupta, office bearer of the Bombay Goods Transport Association.
“We are hopeful that the government will be able to assess the numbers and accordingly plan for a surge in e-way bill numbers from mid April,” he said.
In a note of caution, Abhishek Jain, partner, EY India, said frequent deployment of anti-evasion squads by tax authorities for checking e-way bills could become a bottleneck that will hinder the movement of goods.