Soon, GST officers to be armed with real-time data on vehicles moving without e-way bills.
The government is working on a system to soon provide report to GST officers on a real-time basis for those vehicles which are moving without e-way bills, to aid in seizure of trucks which are stuck at toll plazas and check GST evasion.
The tax officers would also be provided with analysis reports on identifying e-way bill EWB with no movement of goods as it would help them in identifying cases of circular trading. It would also provide reports on recycling of e-way bills for tax evasion prone commodities to help officers in identifying 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 ₹50,000 from April 2018. Gold, however, is exempted.
In the electronic way (e-way) bill system, businesses and transporters have to produce before a GST inspector the e-way bill, if asked.
The government is now working on a '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 the 2020-21 fiscal, ended March, 2021, 61.68 crore e-way bills were generated, of which 2.27 crore was picked up for verification. In 2019-20 fiscal, ended March 2020, 62.88 crore e-way bills were generated, of which 3.01 crore were picked up for verification by tax officers. The top five States, which generated maximum number of e-way bill for inter-state movement of goods were generated are Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. The top five sectors where maximum e-way bills were generated in the past three years are textiles, electrical machinery, machinery and mechanical appliances, iron and steel, and automobiles.