Continued lack of consensus at next meeting could cast shadow on GST rollout by April 1.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said taxpayer base has almost doubled to 1.28 crore in four years of rollout of the historic tax reform and the enhanced GST mop up in the recent months should now be the "new normal". In a written message to tax officers on the fourth anniversary of GST rollout, she said implementing any reform of this scale in a large and diverse country like India can be highly challenging, but GST has brought about ease in taxpayer compliance and reduced common man's tax burden.
The change in the peak rate will not alter the 4-slab rate structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent agreed upon last year, but is only a provision being built into the model law to take care of contingencies in future, two officials in the know told PTI.
GST council may propose a faster refund procedure, deferment of electronic way bill, further simplification of composition scheme
GST rate for petrol and diesel cars and hybrid vehicles is already at the highest bracket of 28 per cent plus cess.
Under GST, the small and medium industries would have to handle things on their own, says V S Krishnan.
The forthcoming Budget, the last full one before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, is expected to contain a number of sops and feel-good announcements, especially regarding social sector schemes.
The central government wants to impose the levy; many states are opposed - at least, to the Centre doing so
Supplying food to schools under mid-day meal scheme, pre-schools and anganwadis is exempt from GST, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has said. Issuing a set of clarification on certain decisions taken by the GST Council in its 43rd meeting on May 28, the CBIC said it had received representations regarding applicability of GST on the issues as to whether serving of food in schools under mid-day meals scheme would be exempt if such supplies are funded by government grants and/or corporate donations. Under the goods and services tax (GST), any catering service, including mid-day meals, provided to an educational institution is exempt from the levy.
The business would also not be allowed to claim any un-availed input tax credit for "goods lost" or "destroyed".
BSE Auto index fell over 0.5% after reports that automobiles might get costlier post GST
GSTN said those who do not want to give their Aadhaar numbers would have to undergo physical verification.
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.
Singapore's single-rate GST structure cannot be India's model. But its practice of early announcement of rates much before their implementation should be emulated by India, says A K Bhattacharya.
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.
Introduction of GST would make Indian products competitive in the domestic and international markets.
In a development that may encourage increased investment in commercial real estate, the Supreme Court on Thursday gave the industry relief by permitting input tax credit (ITC) on construction expenses for buildings meant to be leased. "If the construction of a building was essential for carrying out the activity of supplying services, such as renting or giving on lease or other transactions in respect of the building or a part thereof, which are covered by clauses (2) and (5) of Schedule II of the CGST (Central Goods and Services Tax) Act, the building could be held to be a plant," said Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Sanjay Karol.
The prime minister is aware that whatever be its consequences, a new taxation regime cannot be launched closer to the general elections in 2019. Thus, any date after April 2017 for the launch of GST is risky, says A K Bhattacharya.
Heeding to demands made by several states, the GST Council on Friday put on hold a decision to hike the tax rate on textiles to 12 per cent and referred to a panel of state ministers to recommend rate by February, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. The panel, the highest decision-making body for indirect taxes, met under emergency provisions after states made a request for deferring the tax rate hike on textiles, from the current 5 per cent, to be effective from January 1, 2022. Currently, the tax rate on manmade fibre (MMF) is 18 per cent, MMF yarn 12 per cent, while fabrics are taxed at 5 per cent.
The Centre on Thursday placed before the GST Council two options for borrowing by states to meet the shortfall in GST revenues, pegged at Rs 2.35 lakh crore in the current fiscal.
Jaitley says govt is open to scrapping 1% additional tax on GST
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
'GST gives a huge relief to small businesses of India and West Bengal.'
GST is a landmark reform considering the sweeping changes it brings about in the indirect tax regime in India.
"At present, there are two main rate slabs under which sa majority of goods are covered -- five per cent and 12.5 per cent -- which will now increase to three (five per cent, 12 per cent and 18 per cent).Will this result in multiple litigations is anybody's guess."
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.
The GST will alter the very face of fiscal federalism in India.
All goods and services have been put in slabs of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%
Bihar became the first non-NDA state and overall second after the BJP-ruled Assam to pass GST bill.
Although the markets could see a knee-jerk reaction, they rule out a sharp fall.
With less than five months left for the report of the Fifteenth Finance Commission to be submitted, its chairman N K Singh said the report will have fiscal road map for states, depending on their current situation.
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.
Rahul Gandhi, who is scheduled to again visit poll-bound Gujarat from Saturday, said the government can't break the back of small and medium businesses, crush the informal sector and destroy millions of jobs.
The GST Council, headed by Jaitley and comprising representatives of all the states, is scheduled to meet in Srinagar on May 18-19 to finalise tax rates on different goods and services after unifying at least 10 indirect taxes into the Goods and Services Tax.
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.
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.
The GST Bill, seen as single biggest tax reform in a long time, needs to be ratified by at least 15 state legislatures before the President can notify the GST Council which will decide the new tax rate and other issues
The price of ensuring no disruption after rolling out the GST seems to be an imperfect GST with many relaxations in its compliance norms, says A K Bhattacharya.
The Centre is likely to introduce the Central GST and integrated GST bills in late November or early December in the ongoing session in the form of money Bills.
The cess collected on cars as also tobacco and coal will be used to compensate the revenue loss of states by implementing GST.
