GST: Industry body CII seeks clear guidelines on anti-profiteering, higher e-way bill threshold

New Delhi: Industry body CII has suggested to the GST Council to come up with clear guidelines on anti-profiteering and raise the threshold for intra-state e-way bill generation to Rs 1 lakh. In a memorandum to the Council for consideration, at its forthcoming meeting on 4 August, CII has also demanded that the TRAN-1 facility be reopened for businesses to claim transitional credit, as many businesses could not avail of it earlier. CII said the anti-profiteering provisions have been introduced for the first time under the GST regime. However, no methodology has been prescribed for calculating the benefits under GST, which may further lead to complications and litigations, thus going against the principles of promoting ease of doing business. "The provisions be made transparent and easy to implement or follow. Clear guidelines need to be issued about the manner in which the quantum of price reduction is to be calculated and some standard set of processes and documents be prescribed in case of any proceedings under anti-profiteering measurements," it added. [caption id="attachment_4369575" align="alignnone" width="380"]

GST. Representational image. Reuters.[/caption]The industry chamber also demanded that the value limit for generation of e-way Bill for intra-state movement of goods be increased uniformly to Rs 1 lakh. "Some states have hiked the limit of e-way bill to Rs 1 lakh in intra-state, which needs to be rationalised across India. Even vehicles carrying FMCG/kirana products bound to supply so many shopkeepers are facing too much problem," CII said. As per the GST provisions, transporters or businesses have to generate an electronic way or e-way bill for moving goods worth Rs 50,000 crore or more both within and outside the state. However, certain states like West Bengal, Maharashtra has hiked this threshold to Rs 1 lakh for only intra-state movement of goods. The CII said that since GST was a new system, many businesses made mistakes while claiming credit for taxes paid in the erstwhile excise and service tax regime. "On such mistakes, MSME units are incurring a huge amount of financial loss due to blockage of ITC... GST Tran-1 should be reopened and industry concerns need to be addressed by restoring ITC in the e-credit ledger which has been held up due to system constraint," CII said. As part of the transition to GST last July, taxpayers were allowed to file Form TRAN-1 and avail tax credit on the basis of the closing balance of the credit declared in the last return under the pre-Goods and Services Tax regime. The GST Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister, will in its next meeting on 4 August discuss ways to simplify GST procedures for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The Council secretariat had asked stakeholders to submit their recommendations by 27 July. In its last meeting, the Council had allowed companies with a turnover of up to Rs 5 crore to file GST returns quarterly. This was hiked from Rs 1.5 crore decided earlier.