Moving of goods worth over Rs50,000 need prior registration under GST: CBEC

Moving goods worth over Rs50,000 will require prior online registration of the consignment and generation of an electronic way (e-way) bill under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, according to the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).

The person in-charge of conveyance will be required to carry the invoice or bill of supply or delivery challan, says the draft electronic way (e-way) bill rules that have been released by the CBSC.

The provision is part of the draft electronic way (e-way) bill rules that have been released by the CBEC. The board has also released draft rules for audit and assessment.

Moving goods worth more than Rs50,000 under GST will require prior online registration of the consignment and securing an 'e-way bill' that tax officials can inspect anytime during the transit to check tax evasion.

The CBEC has issued draft rules on e-way bill that registered entities need to furnish information relating to any goods worth more than Rs50,000 they intend to move within a state or outside, in a prescribed format.

GST-Network (GSTN) website will generate e-way bills valid for 1-15 days, depending on distance to be travelled - one day being for 100 km and 15 days for more than 1,000 km transit.

"Upon generation of the e-way bill on the common portal, a unique e-way bill number (EBN) shall be made available to the supplier, the recipient and the transporter on the common portal," states the draft norms.

The person in-charge of conveyance should carry a copy of the e-way bill or the e-way bill number, either physically or mapped to a radio frequency identification device (RFID) embedded on to the conveyance.

The rules authorise the tax commissioner or an officer empowered by him to intercept any conveyance to verify the e-way bill or the number in physical form for all inter-state and intra-state movement of goods.

Physical verification of conveyances can be carried out on specific information of evasion of tax, as per the rules.

The officer will be required to submit a summary report of every inspection of goods in transit within 24 hours and the final report within three days of inspection.

"Where a vehicle has been intercepted and detained for a period exceeding 30 minutes, the transporter may upload the said information in (prescribed form) on the common (GSTN) portal," said the guidelines.

The e-way bills will also come with a mechanism for self-check where every registered supplier will have to inform the government about the location of goods to be transported, which will also be re-confirmed by the transporter.

Although the draft e-way rules did not specify what documents will have to be filled in the bill, experts said the consigner will have to give the name and address of both the sender and receiver of the goods.

Also, they will be required to give description of the goods, its valuation and weight.

The government has already come out with nine set of GST rules earlier this month and today unveiled two set of rules for 'assessment and audit' and 'electronic way bills'.