Micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) and builders here fear that amendments announced by the Commercial Taxes Department on January 10 regarding e-way bills will hit business.
The department has clarified that in case the billing address and shipping address are different for the e-way bill and the goods of the registered person are unloaded at an unregistered (of GST) place, the registered company should register the site of unloading the goods as its additional site of business.
An official of the Commercial Taxes Department said that in case the consignment in such cases is a sample, the delivery challan is accepted.
Similarly, if the site of unloading is an exhibition venue, the exhibitor should register the venue as an additional site of business for a specific period based on the stall allocation letter.
A GST consultant here says that if a builder has works going on at five different sites and he has to move construction materials from the godown of the seller to the different sites, all the sites need to be registered as additional sites of business for the period of construction. In case samples are sent, there should be proper documents when the consignment is transported.
Builders say that while this norm can be managed for large-scale constructions, small builders who do repair works or smaller buildings will find it difficult.
In the case of MSMEs, the micro unit owners point out that a majority of the units do job works and have not registered with GST because their annual turnover is less than ₹25 lakh. “We do not manufacture or handle the finished product. The job working units do only a small work and this has to be recognised as a separate activity in GST,” says J. James, president of Tamil Nadu Association of Cottage and Tiny Enterprises.
The larger companies that give the job work prefer to work with GST registered companies and do not want to take any additional documentation burden. This clarification is likely to affect flow of orders to unregistered job working companies, he added.
C. Sivakumar, president of the Coimbatore, Tiruppur Districts Micro and Cottage Industries Association, said it is difficult to assess the extent of impact on micro units because of the amendment. The micro units are hit with slump in orders because of fluctuation in raw material prices. At the field level, there is substantial movement of small quantities of spares and components for various job works. It will be difficult for the job work giving industry to register all the units as additional sites of business, he said.
