Back on track on gst e way bill system

Back on track on gst e way bill system

As the GST e-way bill system is scaled up, the authorities must remain flexible.

After an aborted attempt in February, the government has finally managed to successfully roll out the e-way bill system for tracking the movement of goods under the Goods and Services Tax net from April 1. No major execution challenges have been reported by businesses so far, and the IT backbone that generates the e-way bills — that are now required even before goods are loaded for transport — has so far held up without glitches (a sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment). On the first two days of the e-way system, which included a Sunday, 5.5 lakh e-way bills were generated, and the GST Network has said that the system is now geared to cope with a much higher capacity. Equally heartening is the revival in GST collections, that had dipped ((of a level or amount) become lower or smaller, typically temporarily) to Rs. 83,716 crore in November 2017, after a fairly robust Rs. 90,000 crore-plus inflow for the first three months of the new indirect tax system. As per final data released by the Centre on Monday, collections for the three months since then are far healthier than initial indications suggested, with February recording ₹89,264 crore, the highest since September 2017. Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia expects collections to pick up further as the authorities get a better sense of who is regularly filing returns and paying taxes. His confidence reflects the government’s belief that analytics deployed on GST data compiled for nine months would deliver a bigger bounty (an abundance, a sum paid by the state to encourage trade), even as e-way bills make it tougher to avoid tax dues.

Everyone’s fingers are crossed (to wish for luck for someone or something, to hope for a good outcome for someone or something) that the e-way bill portal, which now has over 20,000 registered transporters and 11 lakh taxpayers, will hold up (remain strong or vigorous/ to hold something in a high position, so that it can be seen/to support someone or something so that they do not fall down), going forward. It is important to note that since the system for tracking inter-State movement of goods was launched at the beginning of a financial year, the actual load that the portal will have to bear on a normal business day may be much higher than the initial trends. This is because many businesses had already moved and stocked up goods by March 31, ahead of the system kicking in, and are still completing usual year-end processes such as recording closing stock. A staggered schedule for rolling out e-way bills for intra-State trade in a few States at a time is expected soon. Given that India’s transport sector is still largely unorganised and many vehicle drivers are not fully conversant (to be familiar with or have inside knowledge about the facts of something) with the technical nuances (a subtle distinction or variation in shade of meaning, expression, or sound), it is important that anti-evasion squads deployed to check e-way bills operate with a light touch to start with, and limit the frequency of inspections for goods moving across States. Else, the system could end up creating a bottleneck for transporting goods in a country where goods movement already takes inordinately (to an unusually or disproportionately large degree; excessively) long due to infrastructure deficiencies. A similar approach would be ideal for other anti-evasion (the action of escaping or avoiding (someone or something), especially by guile or trickery) measures in the pipeline (in the process of being planned or developed), including the matching of invoices from buyers and sellers, and the reverse-charge mechanism (expected by June-end) under which large businesses would need to pay tax on behalf of unregistered small suppliers.