Introduction
A waybill is a receipt or a document issued by a
carrier giving details and instructions relating to the shipment of a
consignment of goods and the details include name of consignor, consignee, the
point of origin of the consignment, its destination, and route.
Electronic Way Bill (E-Way Bill) is basically a
compliance mechanism wherein by way of a digital interface the person causing
the movement of goods uploads the relevant information prior to the
commencement of movement of goods and generates e-way bill on the GST portal.
Rule 138 of the CGST Rules, 2017 provides for the e-way
bill mechanism and in this context it is important to note that
“information is to be furnished prior to the
commencement of movement of goods” and “is to be issued
whether the movement is in relation to a supply or for reasons other than
supply”.
E-Way Bill
under GST
E-way bill is an electronic document generated on the GST
portal evidencing movement of goods. It has two Components-Part A comprising of
details of GSTIN of recipient, place of delivery (PIN Code), invoice or challan
number and date, value of goods, HSN code, transport document number (Goods
Receipt Number or Railway Receipt Number or Airway Bill Number or Bill of
Lading Number) and reasons for transportation; and Part B comprising of
transporter details (Vehicle number).
As per Rule 138 of the CGST Rules, 2017,every registered
person who causes movement of goods (which may not necessarily be on account of
supply) of consignment value more than Rs. 50000/- is required to furnish above
mentioned information in part A of e-way bill. The part B containing transport
details helps in generation of e-way bill.
Who should generate the e-way bill and why?
E-way bill is to be generated by the consignor or
consignee himself if the transportation is being done in own/hired conveyance
or by railways by air or by Vessel. If the goods are handed over to a
transporter for transportation by road, E-way bill is to be generated by the
Transporter. Where neither the consignor nor consignee generates the e-way bill
and the value of goods is more than Rs.50,000/- it shall be the responsibility
of the transporter to generate it.
Further, it has been provided that where goods are sent
by a principal located in one State to a job worker located in any other State,
the e-way bill shall be generated by the principal irrespective of the value of
the consignment.
How is it
generated?
An
e-way bill contains two parts- Part A to be furnished by the person who is
causing movement of goods of consignment value exceeding Rs.50,000/- and part B
(transport details) to be furnished by the person who is transporting the
goods. Where the goods are transported by a registered person-whether as
consignor or recipient, the said person shall have to generate the e-way bill
by furnishing information in part B on the GST common portal. Where the e-way
bill is not generated by registered person and the goods are handed over to the
transporter for transportation by road, the registered person shall furnish the
information relating to the transporter in Part B of FORM GST EWB-01 on
the common portal and the e-way bill shall be generated by the transporter on
the said portal on the basis of the information furnished by the registered
person in Part A of FORM GST EWB-01.
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-1 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.
In
the above case, the registered person will not have to upload the information
in Part A of FORM GST EWB-01 for generation of e-way bill and the same
shall be auto-populated by the common portal on the basis of the information
furnished in FORM GST INV-1.
Upon
generation of the e-way bill on the common portal, a unique e-way bill number
(EBN) generated by the common portal, shall be made available to the supplier, the
recipient and the transporter on the common portal.
The
details of e-way bill generated shall be made available to the recipient, if
registered, on the common portal, who shall communicate his acceptance or
rejection of the consignment covered by the e-way bill. In case, the recipient
does not communicate his acceptance or rejection within seventy-two hours of
the details being made available to him on the common portal, it shall be
deemed that he has accepted the said details.
Purpose of
E-Way Bill
E-way
bill is a mechanism to ensure that goods being transported comply with the GST
Law and is an effective tool to track movement of goods and check tax evasion.
Validity of
E-Way Bill
The
validity of e-way bill depends on the distance to be travelled by the goods.
For a distance of less than 100 Km the e-way bill will be valid for a day from
the relevant date. For every 100 Km thereafter, the validity will be additional
one day from the relevant date. The “relevant date” shall mean the date on which
the e-way bill has been generated and the period of validity shall be counted
from the time at which the e-way bill has been generated and each day shall be
counted as twenty-four hours. In general, the validity of the e-way bill cannot
be extended. However, Commissioner may extend the validity period only by way
of issue of notification for certain categories of goods which shall be
specified later.
Further,
if under circumstances of an exceptional nature, the goods cannot be
transported within the validity period of the e-way bill, the transporter may
generate another e-way bill after updating the details in Part B of FORM GST
EWB-01.
Cancellation
of E-Way Bill
Where
an e-way bill has been generated under this rule, but goods are either not transported
or are not transported as per the details furnished in the e-way bill, the
e-way bill may be cancelled electronically on the common portal, either
directly or through a Facilitation Centre notified by the Commissioner, within
24 hours of generation of the e-way bill. However, an e-way bill cannot be
cancelled if it has been verified in transit in accordance with the provisions
of rule 138B of the CGST Rules, 2017 .
Finer
Points
An
e-way bill has to be prepared for every consignment where the value of the
consignment exceeds Rs.50,000/-. Where multiple consignments of varying values
(per consignment) are carried in a single vehicle, e-way bill needs to be
mandatorily generated only for those consignments whose value exceeds
Rs.50,000/-. This does not however preclude the consignor/consignee/transporter
to generate e-way bills even for individual consignments whose value is less
than Rs.50000/- per consignment. For multiple consignments being carried in the
same vehicle, the transporter to prepare a consolidated e-way bill by
indicating serial number of each e-way bill, on the common prior to
commencement of transport of goods.
There
is always a possibility that multiple vehicles are used for carrying the same
consignment to its destination or unforeseen exigencies may require the
consignments to be carried in a different conveyance than the original one.
For
such situations, the rules provide that any transporter transferring goods from
one conveyance to another in the course of transit shall, before such transfer
and further movement of goods, update the details of the conveyance in the
e-way bill on the common portal in FORM GST EWB-01.
The
person in charge of a conveyance has to carry the invoice or bill of supply or
delivery challan, as the case may be; and a copy of the e-way bill or the e-way
bill number, either physically or mapped to a Radio Frequency Identification Device
embedded on to the conveyance in such manner as may be notified by the
Commissioner. However, where circumstances so warrant, the Commissioner may, by
notification, require the person-in-charge of the conveyance to carry the
following documents instead of the e-way bill:
(a) Tax invoice or bill
of supply or bill of entry; or
(b) A
delivery challan, where the goods are transported for reasons other than byway
of supply.
It
is also be noted that the Commissioner may, by notification, require a class of
transporters to obtain a unique Radio Frequency Identification Device and get
the said device embedded on to the conveyance and map the e-way bill to the
Radio Frequency Identification Device prior to the movement of goods.
E-Way bill
to be issued whether for supply or otherwise
E-way
bill is to be issued irrespective of whether the movement of goods is caused by
reasons of supply or otherwise. In respect of transportation for reasons other
than supply, movement could be in view of export/import, job-work, SKD or CKD,
recipient not known, line sales, sales returns, exhibition or fairs, for own
use, sale on approval basis etc.
Exceptions
to e-way bill requirement
No e-way bill is required to be generated in the
following cases
a)
Transport
of goods as specified in Annexure to Rule
138 of the CGST Rules, 2017
b)
goods being transported by a non-motorised
conveyance;
c)
goods being transported from the port,
airport, air cargo complex and land customs station to an inland container depot
or a container freight station for clearance by Customs;
d)
in respect of movement of goods within such
areas as are notified under rule 138(14) (d) of the SGST Rules,
2017 of the concerned State; and
e)
Consignment
value less than Rs. 50,000/-
Consequences
of non-conformance to E-way bill rules
If e-way bills, wherever required, are not issued in
accordance with the provisions contained in Rule 138 of the CGST Rules, 2017,
the same will be considered as contravention of rules. As per Section 122 of
the CGST Act, 2017, a taxable person who transports any taxable goods without
the cover of specified documents (e-way bill is one of the specified documents)
shall be liable to a penalty of Rs.10,000/- or tax sought to be evaded
(wherever applicable) whichever is greater. As per Section 129 of CGST Act,
2017, where any person transports any goods or stores any goods while they are
in transit in contravention of the provisions of this Act or the rules made
there under, all such goods and conveyance used as a means of transport for
carrying the said goods and documents relating to such goods and conveyance
shall be liable to detention or seizure.
Enforcement
The Commissioner or an officer empowered by him in this
behalf may authorise the proper officer to intercept any conveyance to verify
the e-way bill or the e-way bill number in physical form for all inter-State
and intra-State movement of goods.
The physical verification of conveyances may also be
carried out by the proper officer as authorised by the Commissioner or an
officer empowered by him in this behalf. Physical verification of a specific
conveyance can also be carried out by any officer, on receipt of specific
information on evasion of tax, after obtaining necessary approval of the
Commissioner or an officer authorised by him in this behalf.
A summary report of every inspection of goods in transit
shall be recorded online by the proper officer in Part A of FORM GST
EWB-03 within twenty-four hours of inspection and the final report
in Part B of FORM GST EWB-03 shall be recorded within three days of such
inspection.
Once 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 a specific
information relating to evasion of tax is made available subsequently.
Where a vehicle has been intercepted and detained for a period
exceeding thirty minutes, the transporter may upload the said information in FORM
GST EWB-04 on the common portal.
Conclusion
The e-way bill provisions aim to remove the ills of the
erstwhile way bill system prevailing under VAT in different states, which was a
major contributor to the bottlenecks at the check posts.
Moreover different states prescribed different e-way bill
rules which made compliance difficult. The e-way bill provisions under GST will
bring in a uniform e-way bill rule which will be applicable throughout the
country. The physical interface will pave way for digital interface which will
facilitate faster movement of goods. It is bound to improve the turnaround time
of vehicles and help the logistics industry by increasing the average distances
travelled, reducing the travel time as well as costs.
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