It's free passage at Walayar now
After the implementation of GST, no vehicles were inspected at the Commercial Tax checkposts in Walayar as per the norm.
Palakkad: Due to the delay in setting up of special squads of the Commercial Tax Department to inspect vehicles carrying goods to Kerala, none of the vehicles carrying goods from other states are being checked in Walayar or anywhere in the district.
Inspection Commissioner at Walayar of Commercial Tax R S Manoj told DC that the officials had not yet got any instructions from the Finance Department to form squads for inspection.
After the implementation of GST, no vehicles were inspected at the Commercial Tax checkposts in Walayar as per the norm. But, the plan was to reallocate the officials to form squads to conduct surprise inspection of vehicles at different points after they crossed the checkpost.
Currently, the vehicles carrying goods to Kerala are submitting the invoice and a declaration to the officials which shows the quantity and price of the goods but no inspections are conducted to crosscheck the details furnished to find out whether the goods were being taken to Kerala without paying GST. Officials at the checkpost said several violations could be committed by the traders while bringing goods from outside the state.
Meanwhile, commercial tax practitioners who assist traders to pay sales tax said that the confusion over GST still remained as they had problems in uploading all the bills of the goods brought to Kerala by traders. They are now making payments through e-filing through a temporary link.
“Notwithstanding that Onam is on September 4, the department has set September 5 as the deadline to upload the bills of July,” a practitioner in Thrissur told DC. He added that Commercial Tax officials were not taking any effective action to solve the existing problem in online submission of bills after the implementation of GST.