From filing 37 returns a year when the Goods and Sales Tax was first introduced in July last year, the process has undergone major changes as the GST Council considered and implemented various models to ease the pain for assessees. Here's a recap of how the process has changed in 10 months.
A corpus of Rs 20,000-30,000 crore is under consideration, to narrow the input tax credit cycle and facilitate their working capital requirements.
Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's wish to levy indirect tax on petrol unlikely to be taken up
Parliament on Thursday cleared the decks for the rollout of the historic Goods and Services Tax from July 1 as it approved four supporting legislations to usher in the one-nation-one-tax regime.
Panel formed to simplify return-filing process, take feedback from stakeholders, experts
Finance ministers from Congress-ruled states say they have alerted the Centre about the problems in GST for several months, but it is only now with the Gujarat assembly election around the corner that the Modi regime has started heeding these suggestions.
'The low tax to GDP ratio of the country will go up, helping the government to adhere to fiscal discipline and keep inflation in check.'
The window for registration is open up to September 30
India studied the Malaysian model, which was scrapped on Wednesday, before implementing the GST and borrowed the anti-profiteering clause to ensure GST benefits are passed on to the end-consumer by the industry
'Significant reductions in the compliance obligations mean businesses earlier struggling to comply will now have enough time to prepare and comply within the extended timelines.'
Some may lose competitiveness due to higher compliance costs
Infosys had told the group of ministers that it would expand its 100-member team to speed up the bug fixes.
The GST Council on Saturday is expected to extend the date for IGST exemption and cess on imports
'The revival of household savings and investment is the litmus test of whether we are on the road to recovery,' says Nitin Desai.
Companies are worried that any staggered roll-out of GST could result in cash flow issues with businesses not able claim tax credit due to breakage in the chain
Ironically, West Bengal, which has been seeking a postponement of the GST roll-out, has fared better among most other states.
Deadline ends, after two extensions and only 70% file detailed return for July
'So far, the government has sanctioned more than Rs 300 billion as GST refunds,' Ansh Bhargava and Aditya Singhania point out.
A GST roll-out by April 1 looks difficult, giving the companies some succour.
So far, 38.38 lakh taxpayers accounting for 64.42 per cent of the total businesses, who had registered in July, filed returns.
'One way to deal with these is to address these quickly and have rapid reaction teams in New Delhi, the state capitals and wherever possible.'
Cash flow-based analysis should throw up businesses better able to survive the transient effects of a working capital crunch, says Devangshu Datta.
Some of the players in the GST race are Payworld, Dell, Tally Solutions
The challenge before the government now is to use the factors that are favourable to its benefit.
'While the GST is structured to be an all-encompassing tax and to create a vastly expanded digital network of recorded transactions, no one knows how traders long used to avoiding taxes will apply their ingenuity,' says T N Ninan.
A government report revealed that fake companies floated with fake addresses, issued fake GST invoices and generated fake e-way bills, with fake vehicle registration details without supplying any goods causing huge loss to the exchequer.
Most employment surveys suffer from drawbacks such as limited data coverage, infrequent data collection, and time lag
'The manufacturing sector and the capital goods industry need all the support that the government can provide, because they are working in a global market where trade restrictions are coming down every day,' says Amar Kaul.
The company will operate the IT system for five years.
'Gloom is nowhere in sight, with healthy foreign exchange reserves, a strong rupee, healthy tax collections, corruption and crony capitalism under check,' argues Gopal Krishna Agrawal.
It takes eight to nine months for developing a robust software from the time the rules are decided, warns Bharat Goenka, managing director of Tally Solutions, one of the entities entrusted as a 'Suvidha Provider' with developing ready software for customers to get them ready for the coming Goods and Services Tax.
GST, a much needed reform that widens the tax net, promises to strangle many legitimate businesses while they wait for the tax administration and systems to catch up, says Rahul Jacob.
Apart from the much-reported constitutional and political hurdles on a national Goods and Services Tax (GST), there is another basic one. Barely half of dealers in the country have a Permanent Account Number (PAN) from the tax department.
We should brace ourselves for more bad news in the coming quarters -- on economic output and growth, strains on the fiscal deficit, export slowdown, small and micro enterprises in distress, and further accumulation of NPAs in the banking sector, says Rahul Khullar.
Though the intent has been hailed as good for the economy, teething problems remain with a five-rate structure for various goods and services
The govt will have to clear hurdles to push GST by March 2015.
Surat houses more than 650,000 powerlooms. Of this, at least 60 per cent have been shut since a month, a loss of Rs 900 crore, finds out Vinay Umarji.
Barely 10% of small businesses are in a GST-ready position, say experts
The council decided not to levy any additional tax on small petrol and diesel cars of up to 1200 cc as well as on hybrid ones.
The GST Network's chairman Navin Kumar speaks to Dilasha Seth and Indivjal Dhasmana on various aspects of the new tax regime.
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