The rising goods and services tax (GST) and personal income-tax collections may bolster the Narendra Modi government's ability to announce new schemes or enhance existing ones.
'You've got to understand it is not easy to die by suicide.' 'People commit suicide only when they lose everything and find no other way to live.'
So far, 38.38 lakh taxpayers accounting for 64.42 per cent of the total businesses, who had registered in July, filed returns.
Only 69 per cent of the assessees filed returns
In an attempt to get states to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by next April, the Centre has softened its stance on most proposals in the draft Constitutional Amendment Bill that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee hopes to pilot in the monsoon session.
'Increasingly, they treat gold as a financial asset in their portfolio rather than just as jewellery.'
For every rupee in the government coffer, the biggest pie of 66 paise will come from direct and indirect taxes, according to the Union Budget 2025-26 documents. Around 24 paise will come from borrowings and other liabilities, 9 paise from non-tax revenue like divestment, and 1 paise from non-debt capital receipts, the Budget documents said.
Chaudhary also said that 66 per cent of government-sponsored health insurance schemes in the country are being run by the central government. "When the COVID-19 pandemic started, a decision was made for sale of all medicines at the GST rate between 5 and 12 per cent and the GST rate for COVID-19 related medicines and instruments has been reduced to five per cent," he said during the Question Hour.
Nasscom president said moving from single to multiple points could be a challenge from the point of view of ease of doing business
The passage of the bill will pave the way for setting up of a GST council that will decide the tax rate, cess and surcharges.
Since the legal changes in the draft laws would take some time, it was decided to postpone the November 25 meeting
GST revenue for the month of June stood at Rs 92,849 crore, a 2 per cent increase over the same month a year ago, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday. The gross GST revenue collected in the month of June 2021 stands at Rs 92,849 crore of which central GST is Rs 16,424 crore, state GST Rs 20,397, Integrated GST Rs 49,079 crore (including Rs 25,762 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 6,949 crore (including Rs 809 crore collected on import of goods), the ministry said. The GST revenues for the month of June 2021 are 2 per cent higher than Rs 90,917 crore collected in June 2020.
Full exemption for all health insurance premiums and reinsurance or a reduction in the GST rate from 18% to 5% on health insurance services is likely.
The Congress, however, said it wanted to see the final print on the wording of the dispute resolution mechanism before committing its support to the Bill
The government introduced the 122nd Constitution amendment Bill.
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.
The Appellate Authority for Advance Rulings (AAAR) of Gujarat has held that papad fryums would not attract any goods and services tax (GST) as they are similar to traditional round papads in all respects. In this connection, the appellate authority modified the ruling of the authority for advance rulings (AAR), which had ruled that Fryums would attract 18 per cent GST. The AAAR held that Fryums is a brand and not a generic name of the product, Harpreet Singh, partner, indirect taxes at KPMG in India said while explaining the order.
At present, except Trai, all regulators and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) have powers to levy penalty in case of violation of any rule or law. The GST anti-profiteering authority will be the only institution which will not have the same.
It is now becoming increasingly clear that rising imports have played a significant role in sustaining the buoyancy in revenues from GST, notes A K Bhattacharya.
By doing away with the 1 per cent inter-state tax over and above the GST rate, the government has met one of the three key demands over which Opposition Congress has been blocking the Bill in the Upper House
GST collections in March touched a record high of over Rs 1.23 lakh crore, a 27 per cent growth over the year-ago period, the Finance Ministry said on Thursday. "GST revenues crossed above Rs 1 lakh crore mark at a stretch for the last six months and a steep increasing trend over this period are clear indicators of rapid economic recovery post pandemic," the ministry said. Closer monitoring against fake-billing, deep data analytics using data from multiple sources including GST, income tax and customs IT systems and effective tax administration have also contributed to the steady increase in tax revenue over last few months, it added.
'Otherwise, how is the government going to make more revenue?' 'The most important thing the GST does is to transfer money from the household consumers who are the most productive users of capital to the most unproductive users of capital, namely the government.'
The GST will also be applicable on the non-compete amount given by an employer to an outgoing employee, report Indivjal Dhasmana and Sudipto Dey.
Farmer representatives and agricultural stakeholders urged the government to provide cheaper long-term credit, implement lower taxes, and double the PM-KISAN income support during a comprehensive pre-budget consultation with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday. The two-hour meeting saw a detailed discussion of proposals, aimed at addressing multiple challenges in the agricultural sector, with key demands focusing on financial relief, market reforms, and strategic investments.
GST seeks to subsume many indirect taxes at the Central and state levels.
To meet the yearly target, each of the next five months has to yield Rs 1.107 trillion GST collections.
The GST Council might on Friday consider taxing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products under the single national GST regime, a move that may require huge compromises by both central and state governments on the revenues they collect from taxing these products. The Council, which comprises central and state finance ministers, in its meeting scheduled in Lucknow on Friday, is also likely to consider extending the time for duty relief on COVID-19 essentials, according to sources in the know of the development. GST is being thought to be a solution for the problem of near-record high petrol and diesel rates in the country, as it would end the cascading effect of tax on tax (state VAT being levied not just on the cost of production but also on the excise duty charged by the Centre on such output).
The government has notified a host of procedural changes in the GST rules, including levy of interest for wrongful utilisation of ITC and turnover threshold for filing annual returns for the 2021-22 fiscal. The changes were vetted by the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council at its meeting last week. With the amendments notified by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), businesses have also been allowed to make tax payments on the GSTN portal by using IMPS and UPI payment modes.
Know what terms like anti-profiteering, CGST, SGST, IGST means in the new regime
GST collections in March slipped below the psychological Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for the first time in four months to Rs 97,597 crore as the Covid-19 lockdown that shut most businesses compounded tax collection woes in an already sluggish economy. Goods and Services Tax (GST) mop-up in March recorded a 8.4 per cent decline over March 2019 collection of Rs 1.06 lakh crore. The collections were lower on account of dip in revenues from domestic transactions as well as imports.
'We revolutionised the system in a manner so that the chances of leakage will be much lower than it was in the beginning.'
The government has proposed to implement GST from April 1, 2016, and the new Finance Commission may be set up ahead of its schedule to look into the issues related to the new indirect tax regime.
Experts said if the slowdown, and subsequent weakness in GST mobilisation, continued, it would curtail the Centre's resources to a considerable extent in the current financial year.
States should have enough time. We still do not know the rules. There are a lot of operational difficulties, says Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu.
The collections stood at Rs 98,202 crore in the month, against Rs 1.02 trillion in July. The figures indicate continuation of economic slow down which was reflected in the gross domestic product (GDP) growth which plummeted to a 25-quarter low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2019-20, experts said.
Finance ministers of states demanded an increase in allocation under 50-year interest-free loan scheme, while fiscally stressed states like Punjab and Kerala pitched for a special package and borrowing flexibility, sources said on Friday. In a pre-budget meeting with Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, states have also urged for higher borrowing limits to support fiscal activities, besides additional funds for Jal Jeevan Mission.
GST compensation law allows for imposition of cess on certain luxury goods like tobacco, high-end cars and aereated drinks to create a corpus for compensating states for any loss of revenue in the first five years
'The time has come to have a relook at the Constitution as every document has a shelf life.'
The government should bring natural gas under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime to realise Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision for a gas-based economy and raising the share of the environment-friendly fuel in India's energy basket, an industry body that represents the likes of Reliance Industries as well as state-owned firms, has said. Natural gas is currently outside the ambit of GST, and existing legacy taxes -- central excise duty, state VAT, central sales tax -- continue to be applicable on the fuel. In its pre-Budget memorandum to the finance ministry, Federation of Indian Petroleum Industry (FIPI), which boasts of members from across the oil and gas spectrum, also demanded rationalisation of GST on transportation of natural gas through pipeline as well as on re-gasification of imported LNG to help bring down cost of the environment friendly fuel.
P K Mishra, a retired IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, is currently serving as the principal secretary to the prime minister.
