We should work in unison to boost growth: FM
A memorandum, signed by the chief ministers or finance ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Karnataka, Delhi, West Bengal, Kerala and Punjab, said the terms were disruptive and a cause for concern.
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
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had asked officials in his ministry to finalise the draft by August 20 so that it could be in Parliament before the session concluded on August 27, said a finance ministry official.
Here's everything you need to know about the Goods and Services Tax Bill.
The finance Minister's comments came on a day when states finance ministers deliberated on various aspects of GST structure at a meeting in New Delhi.
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.
As Centre cedes power to states in indirect tax, it wants to all ystaffers' worry of little work.
Six years after the rollout of the biggest indirect tax reform in India, Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue of Rs 1.5 lakh crore every month has become a new normal and tax officers are focusing on dealing with fraudsters who are adopting newer modus operandi to game the system, causing loss to the exchequer. To apprehend black sheep, who operate as syndicates and create fake entities on the basis of forged documents to claim input tax credit (ITC), tax officers have started using data analytics, artifical intelligence and machine learning aiming to curb evasion, which was over Rs 3 lakh crore since inception of GST. It was over Rs 1 lakh crore in 2022-23. Thinktank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said the most critical pending GST reform is upgradation of GST Network to prevent fake supplies and fraudulent claims of Input Tax Credit (ITC).
Kerala Finance Minister KN Balagopal on Friday urged the Centre to provide more fiscal powers to the states as well as increase the shareable proportion of the GST collections. Besides, he asked the central government to expedite approval for the semi-high-speed railway line or the Silverline project from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod. The project is mired in controversies.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to discuss key issues with state finance ministers.
Fresh plans of privatisation or divestment in central public sector enterprises and public sector banks might take a back seat this financial year because these may require a large consensus among coalition partners.
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The GST Bill, introduced in Parliament in 2010, is being vetted by the Standing Committee on Finance. Now, the states and the Centre would together finalise the draft and bring it back to Parliament.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council's recommendations are not binding on Union and State but have a persuasive value as the country has a cooperative federal structure.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Monday exuded confidence that the centre will be able to sort out the issues concerning implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) shortly.
Seven of the meetings will be held in late November or early December at the finance ministry, as is the norm.
Claiming taxes collected from the south were being distributed to north India and that the former were not getting their due share, Congress MP D K Suresh on Thursday said the southern states will be forced to demand for a separate nation if the 'injustice' was not rectified.
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
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday said the mass consumption items such as pulses, wheat, rice, flour, and curd will not attract the 5 per cent goods and services tax (GST) when sold loose, and not pre-packed or pre-labelled. The clarification came amid protests and widespread criticism by Opposition Members of Parliament over foisting GST on daily-use essentials and subsequent price rise. The all-powerful GST Council, chaired by the Union minister, had last month decided to impose GST on some mass consumption items to simplify the rate structure, which came into effect on Monday.
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 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 disagreement between the Centre and states continued over administrative powers.
Officers from various departments including the finance ministry to be part of rehearsal event
The GST Constitutional Amendment Bill is with the standing committee.
The GST will replace more than a dozen levies central and state levies, including central excise duty, service tax and central sales tax as well as VAT on sale of goods and entry tax, to make movement of goods seamless across 1.3 billion market.
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.
'From the tiniest to mid-level organisations and even some at the lower end of the large-scale ones would say that computerisation and the extensive documentation and regulatory requirements for GST have made the compliance process worse in many cases.'
Even with the Rs 20,000 crore distributed among states, it will still be a fraction of what they have been demanding in financial support and clearance of pending dues.
The all-powerful GST Council on Friday decided to charge food delivery platforms such as Swiggy and Zomato a tax even as it extended concessional tax rates on certain COVID-19 drugs by three months till December 31. The Council, which comprises the Union finance minister and her state counterparts, decided to continue keeping petrol and diesel out of the GST purview as subsuming the current excise duty and VAT into one national rate would impact revenues. Briefing reporters on the decisions taken by the Council at a meeting here, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said GST has been exempted on muscular atrophy drugs like Zolgensma and Viltepso, which cost crores of rupees.
The next meeting of the GST Council will be held on September 28-29 in Goa.
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.
Some also demanded empowering of local bodies.
After failing to convince states to keep petroleum products within the ambit of the proposed goods and services tax (GST), the Centre has finally relented. It has agreed to the proposal of the empowered committee of state finance ministers to keep petroleum products like crude, motor spirit, aviation turbine fuel (ATF) and high-speed diesel out of GST.
Performance-based incentives were recommended by the 13th Finance Commission, but omitted by the 14th Finance Commission
While the government has the option of ensuring the passage of these Bills as money Bills, there are voices within the government advising discretion on the GST roll-out by April 1.
Here's everything you need to know about the Goods and Services Tax Bill.
Recent documents by NITI Aayog and periodic labour force surveys on employment show that the importance of agriculture is rising in the Indian economy.
Petroleum products such as crude, motor spirit and diesel, and alcohol beverages will be kept outside the dual goods and service tax (GST) structure, which will be implemented from April 2010.
Ahead of the first meeting of the top decision-making body in nearly eight months, finance ministers of eight states ruled by non-Bharatiya Janata Party and like-minded parties -- Rajasthan, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Kerala and West Bengal -- have devised a joint strategy to press for a zero tax rate on Covid essentials, sources said.
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