GST Officers to be Armed With Real-Time Data On Vehicles Moving Without E-Way Bill

The Central government is working on a system to soon provide a report to GST officers on a real-time basis for those vehicles which are moving without e-way bills, to help intercept stuck trucks at toll plazas and check GST evasion.

The tax officials will also receive analytical reports on identifying e-way account EWB without movement of goods, as this will help officials identify cases of circular trade. It will also provide reports on the recovery of e-bills for tax evasion that are prone to commodities to help officers identify tax evaders.

Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, e-way bills have been made mandatory for inter-state transportation of goods valued over Rs 50,000 from April 2018. However, gold is exempted.

In the electronic (e-way) billing system, businesses and carriers must set up the e-way account in front of a GST inspector if requested.

The government is now working on ‘Real-time and Analysis Reports on RFID’ for GST officers to help them nab tax evaders who are misusing the e-way bill system.

In a report on ‘E-way Bill – A trip of three years’, the government said that 180 crore e-way billings were generated within three years until March 2021. Of these, only 7 crore accounts have been verified by tax officials.

In the 2020-21 fiscal year, ended March 2021, 61.68 crore e-way bills were generated, of which 2.27 crore was picked up for verification.

In fiscal 2019-2020, ending March 2020, 62.88 e-mail accounts were generated, of which 3.01 million were picked up by tax officials.

To improve tax compliance, the government has also started blocking EWB Bill generation if a GST registered taxpayer has not filed GSTR- 3B return for the last two successive months.