Finance Ministry brings in changes in e-way bill system to check GST evasion

  1. The Finance Ministry has introduced changes in the e-way bill system. The changes were brought in to crack down on Good and Services Tax (GST) evaders.
  2. The E-way bill is an electronic document to be generated online under the GST system when goods of the value of more than Rs.50,000 are shipped. However,failure to produce an e-way bill can attract a penalty of Rs 10,000 or amount of tax sought to be evaded whichever is higher.
  3. The E-way bill must be raised before the goods are shipped and should include details of the goods,their consignor,recipient and transporter.The transporter has to carry the invoice and the copy of E-way bill as support documents for the movement of goods.
  4. The changes brought in the e-way bill system would come with auto-calculation of distance between the source and destination based on the PIN codes.The user would be allowed to enter the actual distance as per the movement of goods which will be limited to 10% more than the auto calculated distance displayed.
  5. Further,the government has also decided not to permit generation of multiple e-way bills based on one invoice.This means,if the e-way bill is generated once with a particular invoice number then none of the parties can generate another e-way bill with the same invoice number.