Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia on Friday promised transporters that the proposed Electronic (e-way) Bill under the Goods and Services Tax will simplify their operations and not cause any compliance burden.
He also promised that tax authorities will provide time to transporters to adjust to the new system, and not begin imposing penalties from “Day 1”.
“The system of e-way Bill is a major reform and will remove many complications,” he said while addressing a session at the India Integrated Transport and Logistics Summit 2017.
“Initially, we will only observe the behaviour (of transporters). We will be flexible and won’t put penalties from the start,” he said.
Doing away with hard copies of verification documents, Adhia said that e-way bills can also be generated through a smart phone and sent to the driver of the cargo vehicle as an SMS. Under GST, freight worth over ₹50,000 will require obtaining a prior registration and generation of an e-way bill and will be used to track all inter-State and intra-State movement of goods.
Tax commissioners or an officer empowered by him would be allowed to intercept any conveyance to verify the e-way bill or the number in physical form.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs has already issued draft e-way rules, which are likely to be finalised by the GST Council in its meeting on May 18 and 19.
Adhia said that suggestions from stakeholders would be examined before finalising the rules.
Tax rate on servicesAdhia further said that while the expectation is that the tax rates on services are likely to increase from 14.5 per cent to 18 per cent under GST, there is no clarity on the rates on transportation services. “Since, no input tax credit will be available for petroleum and diesel under GST, the rate for transportation services will be different,” he said.