For filing return regularly, the finance ministry made an attempt to force the non-compliant business by banning e-way bill generation which is generated while shifting consignment, if the supplier/recipient of the consignment has not filed the returns for continuously two return cycles under GST (Goods and Services Tax).
The department wants to bring more & more stringent actions against the non-return filing businessman and in this direction, the government is set to bar all those registered business units from generating GST eway bill forcing them to file any pending return.
However, there is no confirmation of the said provision and would only be applicable once after the notification releases. Also, there is no clarity on the revoking of the ban in case the taxpayer has paid the taxes and has filed the pending returns.
If the business for transferring of the consignment is more than Rs 50,000, then from the common portal, it is necessary to generate the e-way bill. For this, the supplier/recipient have to file a part A form with the details of Goods and Services Tax (GST) identification number, invoice number and value of goods among others. And then, the transporter has to file part B form with details of vehicles which are used.
As per the statement of a tax expert, “This effectively means that businesses who fail to file returns cannot transport goods at all”.
Since the launch of GST in July 2017, the tax department is unable to improve compliance in a proper way. Approximately 30 percent of desirable taxpayers still do not file the summary return GSTR-3B until the deadline which is the 20th of every month.
For now, approx. 29 percent i.e. 98.4 lakh desirable taxpayers have not filed the returns for November till the end of December. Similarly, approx. 25 percent i.e. 18 lakh desirable composition scheme taxpayers has not filed the quarterly returns for July-September till December 27.
Due to the combination of low compliance and decreased return-filing system, the tax department is facing difficulty to check the tax evasion because the flow of intelligence data is disintegrated. The new simplified return system announced by the GST (Goods and Services Tax) Council will come to existence from July 2019. The evasion cases are more in the second year of Goods and Services Tax.
