All eyes will be on whether Sitharaman provides the much-expected tax relief for the middle class, leaving more money in their hands, as there is tax buoyancy
The new restriction will be challenging for businesses, as they will have to do regular follow-ups with their suppliers.
The finance ministry has set up two committees of state finance ministers which would rework rate slabs, review GST exempt items and identify potential evasion sources. Four years after the roll out of the national Goods and Services Tax (GST), which replaced the complex indirect tax structure, the centre and states have started work on moving towards a "simpler rate structure in GST" by reviewing the current rate slabs, including special rates and merger of rate slabs. The Group of Ministers (GoM) on rate rationalisation would also review items under inverted duty structure to help minimise refund payout, and review the supply of goods and services exempt under GST with an objective to expand the tax base and eliminate breaking of input tax credit (ITC) chain.
Income tax officials on Monday conducted surveys at offices of engineering major Larsen & Toubro and media firm Zee Group for alleged GST evasion, an official of the tax department said. When contacted, L&T neither confirmed nor denied the development, while the media group has confirmed the tax survey. The tax official said surveys have been carried out at many L&T premises in the city, and in case of Zee, the surveys are underway at all its offices across the country since morning.
The 41st meeting of the GST Council, to be held via video conferencing, has just one agenda for discussion -- making up for shortfall in states' revenues, sources said.
For the government to meet its GST roll-out deadline of April 1, 2017, the states will have to ratify the Bill before Parliament's winter session, starting November.
Dr Nagesh Kumar, one of the three new MPC members, wanted the MPC to reduce the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.25%.
Traversing from being just vehicle manufacturers to mobility solutions providers amid a raging debate over which eco-friendly technology must be incentivised, the Indian automobile industry is driving in the new year under the shadow of a slowdown in sales with the post-pandemic pent-up demand in distant memory. The shift in the auto industry -- where advanced technologies like autonomous driving, vehicle intelligence, connected features and electrification are quickly gaining traction -- will be reflected in the upcoming Bharat Mobility Global Expo in which India's flagship Auto Expo has been clubbed to be held from January 17-22, 2025 in Delhi-NCR.
GST taxpayers will be required to reverse by November 30 the input tax credit (ITC) claimed in the last fiscal in case their suppliers fail to deposit the due tax by September 30, the finance ministry has said. The taxpayers, however, can reclaim the ITC later following the deposit of taxes by the supplier. The ministry has inserted Rule 37A in Central Goods and Services Tax rules to give effect to the new provision.
The government is going all out to spread awareness about the new indirect tax regime, and training lawmakers is being seen as a necessary first step.
Certain clarifications by the GST Council, such as tax rates on ice cream parlours and royalty paid to state governments over mineral rights, may turn out to be contentious and lead to litigation, feel some experts. The council, at its meeting in Lucknow on Friday, had clarified that ice cream parlours will attract goods and services tax (GST). The clarification said these parlours sell already manufactured ice cream and such supply would draw 18 per cent tax.
The Centre and states are looking to further tighten the GST registration process and legal measures to deal with the rising cases of fake invoicing. A meeting of the law committee of the GST Council has been convened on Wednesday to discuss these issues, finance ministry sources said. The committee, comprising senior central and state tax officers, would also discuss the GST fake invoice frauds, further tightening of the GST registration process and work out other legal measures including necessary law amendment required in the GST Act to curb the menace of fake invoicing, they added. Also the provisions related to deemed registration under Goods and Services Tax (GST) law may be tightened to prevent the misuse of such provisions by fake dealers and the provisions related to suspension of registration may also be streamlined to make the procedure of suspension and cancellation of registration more efficient and faster, so that such fraud operators can be prevented in time from continuing to pass on fake credit down the chain.
With 7 per cent economic growth, India is not creating enough jobs as reflected by the number of applicants for vacant posts in some states, Reserve Bank's former governor Raghuram Rajan said and suggested the government needs to focus on promoting labour-intensive industries to generate employment. Rajan further said some Indians, especially those at upper level, are comfortable and have high incomes, but consumption growth from the lower half of the country has still not recovered to pre-pandemic level.
Even if the GST rate is 18-20 per cent, there would be no average impact on inflation.
Mahindra & Mahindra on Friday said it has been imposed a penalty of Rs 4.12 crore over input tax credit claim and education cess credit balance carry forward from pre-GST regime to GST regime in relation to its two-wheeler business. In a regulatory filing, Mahindra & Mahindra said it has received an order from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, State Tax, Audit Wing, Indore-01, Madhya Pradesh imposing a penalty amounting to Rs 4,11,50,120 to the two-wheeler business of Mahindra Two Wheelers Ltd (MTWL), which was demerged from MTWL and has since been merged with the company.
Pulse oximeters, hand sanitisers, temperature check equipment and ambulances too will attract lower 5 per cent tax.
The government has extended the deadline for filing GST annual return and audit report for the 2018-19 fiscal year by a month, till October 31.
Stating that GST council meetings have become "almost toxic" with the erosion of trust between the Centre and states, West Bengal minister Amit Mitra on Wednesday urged Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to consider a "course correction" to rebuild faith. In a letter to Sitharaman, the state's finance minister also claimed that the central government comes to GST council meetings with a "predetermined conclusion". Mitra on June 13 alleged that his voice was "muzzled" during the GST Council meeting on that day and his opposition to levy taxes on Covid essentials like vaccines, masks, PPE kits and anti-viral drug Remdesivir, was not heard.
The panel decided to omit the reverse charge mechanism (RCM) clause from the GST law under which registered taxpayers buying from unregistered taxpayers have to deposit the GST.
Here's everything you need to know about the Goods and Services Tax Bill.
It was better to first build a single-rate GST with a low rate, achieve full mastery of this, and then consider more complex possibilities such as high rates and multiple rates.
Industry body CII has pitched for a reduction in personal income tax rates, decriminalisation of the goods and services tax and a relook at the capital gains tax rates as part of its agenda presented to the government for the forthcoming Budget. Arguing that the GST law already contains adequate penal provisions for deterrence against evasion of taxes, CII has suggested decriminalisation of GST law. Also, the applicability of prosecution provisions should not be based on the absolute amount of tax evasion but should be based on real intent to evade the taxes and a certain percentage of the tax payable, it stated.
Tomato prices have been on the boil for more than a month. Data from major cities show that the spike has been between 125 and 150 per cent at the wholesale level. Soaring vegetable prices, including tomatoes, pushed the retail inflation rate to a nine-month high of 5.49 per cent in September, according to government data. Though reports say prices are expected to come down in the next few weeks after supplies improve from Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, how long will the respite last is anybody's guess.
Banerjee asked Modi not to allow "an insufferable blow to the federalist polity of the nation" by depriving the states of the GST compensation. "I am deeply anguished by the Goods and Services Tax imbroglio which tantamounts to a betrayal of the trust and moral responsibility of the Government of India towards the states, violating the very premise of federalism."
A well-established tax system would have a predictable buoyancy - how fast the collections grow as a proportion to the growth of the economy. But that is not the case with GST. It is still undergoing substantial changes as the government responds to structural as well as administrative glitches.
The Centre managed to collect only Rs 990 crore as compensation cess in April 2020-21, almost one-ninth of the figure of Rs 8,874 crore mopped up a year ago. The subdued collection would further increase states' problems unless the GST Council, which meets next week, decides to borrow from the market.
The CBIC has come out with guidelines on blocking of tax credit by GST field officers, saying that such blocking should be on the basis of 'material evidence' and not just out of 'suspicion'. The guidelines laid down five specific circumstances in which such credit could be blocked by a senior tax officer. These include availment of credit without any invoice or any valid document, or availing of credit by purchasers on invoices on which GST has not been paid by sellers.
'So far, the government has sanctioned more than Rs 300 billion as GST refunds,' Ansh Bhargava and Aditya Singhania point out.
It is possible that the Centre has now become wiser and has decided to follow an allocation system which gives it more from Integrated GST and helps boost its revenues, says A K Bhattacharya.
There could be a strong incentive for tax payers to avoid the higher tax burden.
The central government is likely to exceed the budgeted tax collection target of Rs 22.2 trillion for the current fiscal year, led by better indirect tax mop-up, compliance measures, and recovery in most sectors following the second wave of the Covid pandemic. Personal income and corporate tax collections (net of refunds) grew 74 per cent to Rs 5.70 trillion in the first half of the current financial year, driven mainly by advance tax and TDS payments. The target for the current fiscal year is Rs 11.08 trillion; higher taxes are paid usually towards the end of a fiscal year.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections jumped to over Rs 1.31 lakh crore in November, the second highest since its implementation in July 2017, in line with the trend in economic recovery, the finance ministry said on Wednesday. "The gross GST revenue collected in the month of November 2021 is Rs 1,31,526 crore of which CGST is Rs 23,978 crore, SGST is Rs 31,127 crore, IGST is Rs 66,815 crore (including Rs 32,165 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess is Rs 9,606 crore (including Rs 653 crore collected on import of goods)," the ministry said in a statement. CGST refers to Central Goods and Services Tax, SGST (State Goods and Service Tax) and IGST (Integrated Goods and Services Tax).
India's Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection surged to Rs 1.30 lakh crore in October, the second highest since its implementation in July 2017, indicating economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and impact of festive demand, a finance ministry statement said on Monday. The highest GST collection of Rs 1.41 lakh crore was recorded in April 2021. This is the fourth time in a row when the GST collection was upwards of Rs 1 lakh crore. The collection from GST was Rs 1.17 lakh crore in September, 2021.
The Council also discussed process to make return filing simpler with just one return to be filed every month.
The liquidity in the banking system moved into surplus almost after three months as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) absorbed over Rs 40,000 crore from the market on Monday, predominantly on the back of increased government spending. However, this situation may be short-lived given the higher demand for funds to pay taxes and year-end targets, treasury executives said. Meanwhile, two variable reverse repo rate (VRRR) auctions held on Tuesday received weak response.
While Congress and the states ruled by non-NDA parties pushed for the Centre meeting its statutory obligation of covering the deficit, the Union government cited a legal opinion to say it had no such obligation if there was a shortfall in tax collections. The Centre as well as BJP-JD-U-ruled Bihar were of the opinion that the states should borrow to make up for the shortfall in the tax revenues that have been compounded by the COVID-19 crisis, sources said.
The CAG has found that the Union government in the very first two years of the GST implementation wrongly retained Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess that was meant to be used specifically to compensate states for loss of revenue.
Amid an outcry over record high petrol and diesel prices, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday said the Centre and state governments will have to together work out a mechanism to bring retail rates to reasonable levels.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, chaired by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, will likely consider on Saturday a GST rate cut for Covid-19 relief essentials and drugs for treating the black fungus disease and might leave the vaccines untouched. The meeting is being held following a report submitted by a Group of Ministers (GoM) to the GST Council on Monday. The GoM, set up by the Council on May 28, was mandated to look at tax exemption and concessions on various Covid items including vaccines, drugs, and equipment.
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