India To Adopt E-Way Bill Under GST Regime Starting Feb

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

20 December 2017

India will trial a new system that will enable goods to be sent to other Indian states without border checks under the country's new goods and services tax (GST) regime from February 2018.

Following the 24th meeting of India's GST Council, it was announced that the system set out in the so-called e-way bill would be trialled, with the legislation to enter into force on January 16, 2018.

The e-way bill provides that taxable persons will have to declare ahead of time consignments worth at least INR50,000 (USD780). A delay to the regime's implementation was announced in October 2017.

The system is intended to enable the removal of non-tariff barriers to trading between states, to establish a single market across India, similar to that in place in the European Union. It will require pre-registration of goods prior to transportation, to eliminate the need for checks at border checkpoints between states.

The GST Council announced in a statement that: "The rules for implementation of nationwide e-way bill system for inter-state movement of goods on a compulsory basis will be notified with effect from February 1, 2018. This will bring uniformity across the states for seamless inter-state movement of goods."

"While the system for both inter-state and intra-state e-way bill generation will be ready by January 16, 2018, the states may choose their own timings for implementation of e-way bill for intra-state movement of goods on any date before June 1, 2018."

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