The provisions relating e-way bill under GST is giving a serious headache to the business community at large.  Since the consensus has not been reached on the e-way bill amongst states, sad to say, state border check posts collecting taxes for movement of goods from one state to another will continue to do so.

The dismantling of State border check posts is crucial to the ‘one nation, one tax’ idea of GST, however, the indication from the Finance Minister suggests that states may continue with their own current system on e-way in the absence of consensus on this issue.What is e-way bill under GST law

E-way bill is an electronic way bill for movement of goods which can be generated on the GSTN (common portal).

Every registered person who causes movement of goods of consignment value exceeding Rs. 50000, before the commencement of movement, shall furnish information about the goods in FORM GST INS-01.

E-way bill will also be allowed to be generated or canceled through SMS. When an eway bill is generated a unique eway bill number (EBN) is allocated and is available to the supplier, recipient, and the transporter.

The person-in-charge of a conveyance shall carry a copy of e-way bill either physically or mapped to a RFID embedded onto the conveyance.

Central Tax officers authorized so can intercept any conveyance to verify the e-way bill for Inter-State or Intra-State Movement of goods. For this purpose, the Govt. shall get RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device) installed at places where verification of movement of vehicles would be done.

A Summary Report of every such inspection of goods in transit shall be recorded in Part-A of FORM GST INS-03 within 24 hours, and final report in PART-B of said Form must be recorded within 3 days.

There are five rules which deal with the aspects of movement of goods:

1. Information to be furnished prior to the commencement of movement of goods and generation of E-way bill.
2. Documents and devices to be carried by a person-in-charge of a conveyance.
3. Verification of documents and conveyances.
4. Inspection and Verification of goods.
5. Facility for uploading information regarding detention of vehicle.

Supply in case of E-way bill would include following:

• A supply may be – Supplied for a consideration (means payment) during business
• Supplies made for a consideration (payment) which may not be during business
• Supplies without consideration (without payment)

In this context, supply would include, the sale of goods and payment made, branch transfers, Barter/Exchange – Payment by goods instead of money. Therefore, E-way bills must be generated on the common portal for all types of movements in relation supply.

Generation of E-way bill – An E-way bill can be generated in the manner as mentioned in the table below as per E-way rules:

Who	When	Part	Form
Every Registered person under GST	Before movement of goods	Fill Part A	Form GST INS-1
Registered person is consignor or consignee (mode of transport may be owned or hired) OR is recipient of goods	Before movement of goods	Fill Part B	Form GST INS-1
Registered person is consignor or consignee  and goods are handed over to transporter of goods	Before movement of goods	Fill Part A & Part B	Form GST INS-1
Transporter of goods	Before movement of goods	Fill form GST INS-1 if consignor does not.
An unregistered person under GST and recipient is registered.	Compliance to be done by Recipient as if he is the Supplier.

A registered person or transporter, AT THEIR OPTION, generate and carry E-way Bill for the consignment value less than Rs. 50,000.

A registered person may submit a tax invoice in Form GST INV-1 on the common portal. If a registered person has uploaded the invoice, information in Part A of Form GST INS-1 is auto populated from GST INV1.

The validity of an e-way bill – An e-way bill is valid for periods as listed below, which is based on the distance traveled by the goods. Validity is calculated from the date and time of generation of eway bill-

Distance	Valid from	Valid for
Less than 100km	Date & time at which e-way bill is generated	1 day
100km to 300km	Date & time at which e-way bill is generated	3 days
300km to 500km	Date & time at which e-way bill is generated	5 days
500km to 1000km	Date & time at which e-way bill is generated	10 days
1000km or more	Date & time at which e-way bill is generated	15 days

The Commissioner may extend the validity period of the e-way bill for certain categories of goods.

Pain points relating to e-way bill under GST:

Every e-way bill generated would have definitive validity based on the distance the goods needs to travel. To our mind, at times, it would not be possible to estimate this, for instance, transportation of an industrial boiler would take more time. Also, the e-way bill needs to be canceled within 24 hours if not undertaken.

Infact the need to have an e-way bill system needs to be considered, as there would not be any scenarios of tax arbitrage under the GST regime, earlier, it was due to different rates of VAT in different states. Need to understand what purpose the provision would fulfill in the larger gamut of GST.

Also, it appears that the requisite IT infrastructure to get the e-way bill rules implemented is not ready and would take some time. If that is the case, then atleast the GST council should have put it off for 6 months until the time the system is ready and tested. It is not in the interest of all if we leave it to the respective states to deal with it.  We feel that the lack of consensus

It is not in the interest of all if we leave it to the respective states to deal with it.  We feel that the lack of consensus on e-way bills will be a roadblock to the seamless movement of goods and will add to the chaos. For instance, Delhi requires waybills for incoming goods whereas Maharashtra does not require any waybill. Karnataka requires waybills for both incoming as well outgoing goods.  This would mean that states will continue to deal with way bills differently while the GST law would be the same.

Thus, in the current form E-Way Bill under GST – A Serious Headache. 

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