E-Way bill on agenda for GST Council meeting tomorrow

New Delhi : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will chair the 24th Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting on December 16, i.e. Saturday via video conferencing, to review the position on the implementation of e-way bill under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. E-way bills would aid India's logistics ecosystem and will lead to a reduction in pricing of road freight. E-way bill will require online registration for movement of goods worth more than Rs. 50,000, easing the movement of freight further, and bring in more transparency in the whole process. The GST Council in its 22nd meeting on October 6 had recommended that the e-way bill system should be rolled out in parts from January 2018 and shall be nationwide effective April 2018. This was done to give trade and industry more time to acclimatize itself with the GST regime. The GST Council will also be deliberating on reverse charge mechanism, ways to curb tax evasion, and also the restoration of SME supply chain. Earlier, in a move to benefit small businesses and substantially reduce compliance costs, the reverse charge mechanism under sub-section (4) of section 9 of the CGST Act, 2017 and under sub-section (4) of section 5 of the IGST Act, 2017 was suspended till March 31, 2018. Reverse charge mechanism was under the review by a committee of experts. In the 23rd GST Council meeting at Guwahati on November 10, 178 items were moved from the 28 per cent tax rate slab to the 18 per cent slab under the GST regime.