Govt to resume E-way bill blocking for non-compliant taxpayers

The government will resume blocking of E-way Bill (EWB) generation facility for all taxpayers who fail file their monthly or quarterly GST return for two successive periods.

E-way is a permit needed for inter-state and intra-state transportation of goods. If this is blocked, the business of traders dealing sale of goods or service across multiple locations in the country would come to a standstill.

As per an advisory issued by the Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN), a non-profit, non-government organisation which manages the entire IT system of the GST portal, the government will resume blocking of EWB facility -- suspended earlier due to the pandemic -- from August 15 onwards. So, taxpayers, traders, and businesses requiring to move their goods or render services in different states would require to be up to date on filing their monthly and quarterly GST filing, or else their EWB generation will be temporarily suspended by tax authorities.

"After August 15, 2021, the System (GSTN) will check the status of returns filed in Form GSTR-3B or the statements filed in Form GST CMP-08, and restrict the generation of EWB in case of non-filing of two or more returns in Form GSTR-3B for the months up to June, 2021 and non-filing of 02 or more statements in Form GST CMP-08 for the quarters up to April to June, 2021," the advisory said.


GSTR-3B is a self-declared summary GST return filed every month (quarterly for QRMP or quarterly return filing and monthly payment of tax scheme). Form CMP-08 is a special statement-cum-challan used by composition dealers to declare the details or summary of his/her self-assessed tax payable for a given quarter. It also acts as a challan for making payment of tax.

These two forms provide valuable information about taxpayers and is part of compliance measures put in place to keep the GST system working without discrepancies.

Due to the pandemic, the government had given some relaxation on compliance measures to taxpayers. With economy and businesses fast returning to normal after Covid's second wave, the government is trying to restore measures announced earlier.-IANS