Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said, a hike in GST rates would have hampered consumption amid the economic slowdown. The revenue augmentation panel in the Council meeting recently recommended revisiting and restructuring the GST rate slabs, besides correcting the inverted duty structure. The panel listed 24 items, including mobile phones, footwear, fabrics, LED light, medical equipment, utensils, agri machinery, pharma, and renewable components, which have an inverted duty structure, resulting in refunds of close to Rs 20,000 crore annually.
The new restriction will be challenging for businesses, as they will have to do regular follow-ups with their suppliers.
Proposals from the Centre's side include raising the 5 per cent slab to anywhere between 6 and 8 per cent, and doing away with the 12 per cent slab. A few states may oppose such a move because it involves hiking tax on items consumed by the poor. They have instead proposed raising the 18 per cent slab.
To improve compliance, govt may introduce lottery reward for filing GST. The Consumer Welfare Fund, where anti-profiteering proceeds are deposited, will be used to reward the lucky winners on monthly and annual bases. The prize money, yet to be fixed, may run into several lakhs of rupees for the annual draw, and about Rs 50,000 for monthly draws.
'The corporate tax cuts will obviously result in lower tax payments by companies,' says Central Board of Direct Taxes member Akhilesh Ranjan who retires after 37 years in government service.
The e-invoicing system will be rolled out in a phased manner from January 1 on a voluntary and trial basis, beginning with firms with a turnover of Rs 500 crore, while businesses with a turnover of Rs 100 crore or more will be required to do it from February 1.
The government is planning to extend the electronic modes of tax payment to its own payments platform, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), credit cards of banks, or even a mobile wallet like Paytm.
The CMS allows e-adjudication of certain lapses and paying penalties online, doing away with the need to visit an MCA office or go through a legal process.
The reduced growth is largely because of consumption slowdown and tax rate cuts.
The aim of the exercise was to further simplify GST forms and make the filing process more user-friendly, the finance ministry said in a tweet, reports Dilasha Seth.
Govt may tighten presumptive taxation norms and also do away with some deductions.
Collection will have to rise by 30 per cent in the remaining period of the financial year to achieve the Budget estimate.
The properties the government is eyeing to dispose of this year are located in prime locations of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Surat, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Ninety-nine companies, which also include some unlisted ones, have more than Rs 100 crore each of minimum alternate tax credit on their books, cumulatively adding up to Rs 75,000 crore. By utilising MAT credit, many companies will be able to bring down their effective tax cost.
The immediate revenue loss could worsen the Centre's fiscal deficit, from the budgeted 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3.7 per cent of GDP -- a massive 40-basis-point increase. It was stabilised at 3.4 per cent since 2016-17, report Abhishek Waghmare and Dilasha Seth.
Facing a deepening slowdown, the auto sector is pinning hopes on the GST Council meeting on September 20 for a rate cut from 28 per cent to 18 per cent. However, states including Bihar, West Bengal, Kerala, and Punjab are of the view that the slowdown in the auto sector is not because of the GST rate but structural issues in the economy.
Changes in I-T rules kick in today; to help govt track taxpayers' income, reports Dilasha Seth.
The proposed move to withdraw the DDT would help encourage investments by addressing multiple taxation of income and bringing down the effective tax rate on companies, which is among the highest in the world.
Call for fiscal autonomy to Union Territories with Assemblies may get louder with 'special status' to J&K in the Finance Commission, say experts.
Unless security is given paramount importance, it is difficult for real estate activity to pick momentum in J&K.
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