Irregularities in GST E-Way Bills Reported by CAG in Jammu & Kashmir
The CAG report exposed serious flaws in Jammu and Kashmir’s GST e-way bill system, showing poor enforcement and major tax irregularities.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out several major flaws in the GST e-way bill system in Jammu and Kashmir.The e-way bill system started in April 2018 to record the movement of goods worth more than ₹50,000 in advance. It was applied across states at the same time, and within Jammu and Kashmir for goods moving inside the state. The audit found...
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has pointed out several major flaws in the GST e-way bill system in Jammu and Kashmir.The e-way bill system started in April 2018 to record the movement of goods worth more than ₹50,000 in advance. It was applied across states at the same time, and within Jammu and Kashmir for goods moving inside the state.
The audit found that some taxpayers who were not eligible continued under the Composition Levy scheme.Many taxpayers either filed “nil” returns or did not file returns at all, even though they had generated e-way bills. This led to a tax impact of about ₹2.29 crore.
Between 2018 and 2022, three taxpayers generated 5,739 e-way bills worth about ₹67.99 crore. But in their GSTR-3B returns, only ₹64.24 crore was reported, showing a gap of ₹3.75 crore. Also there was no proper reconciliation between GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B, so it was unclear which invoices had unpaid tax.
E-way bills were created even by people whose registrations were cancelled. Some bills had wrong vehicle numbers, including scrapped vehicles or two-wheelers. In some cases, multiple e-way bills were issued for the same invoice.
Enforcement Issues:
- The Enforcement Wing faced severe staff shortages between 2018 and 2022:
- 29–55% vacancies in state tax officers
- 43–72% in inspectors
- 54–71% in sub-inspectors
- 36–92% in head guards
- 77–86% in guards
- 71–83% in drivers
- No fixed targets were set for checking e-way bills.
- In 47 cases, physical verification reports (Form MOV-04) were not prepared, so goods assessment could not be confirmed.
- A Grievance Redressal Officer was not appointed.
Apart from this many irregularities came such as late fees were not charged for delayed returns and interest was not collected on late tax deposits.also the registration cancellations were delayed, and GSTR-10 returns were not filed in many cases.In some cases, action was started but not completed.
From all overall this impact large scale irregularities were found including :
- Less or no payment of interest
- Outstanding tax amounts
- Wrongly claimed Input Tax Credit (ITC)
- Differences in returns
- ITC claimed without suppliers depositing tax
Altogether, these issues added up to a tax effect of ₹439.36 crore.
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