GST officers to be soon armed with real-time data on vehicles moving without e-way

The tax officers would also be provided analysis reports on identifying e-way bill EWB with no movement of goods as it would help officials identifying cases of circular trading

New Delhi: 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 help intercept stuck trucks at toll plazas and check GST evasion.

The tax officers would also be provided analysis reports on identifying e-way bill EWB with no movement of goods as it would help officials 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.

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Under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, e-way bills have been made mandatory for inter-state transportation of goods valued over Rs 50,000 from April 2018. However, gold 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 a report on ‘E-way Bill – A journey of three years’, the government said 180 crore e-way bills have been generated in three years till March 2021. Of this, only 7 crore bills were verified by tax officers.

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.