The National Flag, temple prasadam, khadi fabric, and Gandhi caps may be exempt from Goods and Services Tax, but for their transportation, the Centre is considering mandating the generation of e-waybills once that system is operationalised.
Transporting currency, LPG, and kerosene oil, however, won’t need an e-waybill. An e-waybill is an electronic bill documenting any transport of a good of a value of more than Rs 50,000.
A list of exemptions and items to be included in the proposed e-waybill rules, shows that while hand-gliders and their components will require an e-waybill, sensitive technology that goes into spacecrafts and satellites will be exempt.
Other items that will require e-waybills are curd, natural honey, dried vegetables, unroasted coffee beans, unbranded coconut water, and firewood, among a list of 61 item groups.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley last Sunday announced, following the 17th meeting of the GST Council, that since the Council could not reach a consensus regarding the implementation of the e-waybill system, it would authorise the continuation of the current waybill until a consensus is reached.
‘Point of controversy’
“The e-waybill was always a point of controversy among the trader community and the government,” Vivek Jain, Founder at CAclubindia, an online platform for tax professionals, said.
According to the latest version of the e-waybill rules being considered by the GST Council, the government will have to install radio-frequency identification (RFID) scanners ‘at places where verification of movement of goods is required to be carried out’, so as to verify the e-waybill linked RFID tags on vehicles.
The rules further add that, upon the generation of e-waybill on the common portal, a unique e-waybill number will be provided to the supplier, recipient, and transporter that can be verified by a tax official at any point during the inter-state or intra-state movement of the goods.
“Every business generating this e-waybill—for even intra-state transport—on a daily basis would be a mammoth task,” Mr. Jain said.
“Rs 50,000 invoice is very low and should be increased to at least Rs 1 lakh,” Mr. Jain added.
This Rs 50,000 limit applies to any and all vehicles transporting goods, according to the rules, which include rickshaw-pullers transporting a fridge, individuals taking home a TV they bought, or even an Amazon delivery agent.
“Any vehicle that is moving with a shipment in it and the value of that shipment is above Rs 50,000 then you have to make sure an e-waybill is generated at the time of pickup, whether it is a bike, a rickshaw, or a 4-wheeled vehicle,” Vijay Kumar, COO at Express Industry Council of India.
Another issue, according to infrastructure and transport industry players is the proposed validity of these e-waybills. The rules say that an e-waybill generated for a journey of 500-1000 km would be valid for only ten days. Transporters have pointed out that large equipment like boilers, which require huge 16-wheeled slow-moving trucks, cannot be transported over such large distances over a short amount of time. Others have pointed to the difficulty in quick transport in difficult terrain like in the North Easter states.
Source: The Hindu
