The new restriction will be challenging for businesses, as they will have to do regular follow-ups with their suppliers.
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Businesses with monthly turnover of over Rs 50 lakh will have to mandatorily pay at least 1 per cent of their GST liability in cash, the finance ministry said as it moved to curb evasion by fake invoicing. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has introduced Rule 86B in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rules which restricts use of input tax credit (ITC) for discharging GST liability to 99 per cent. "... The registered person shall not use the amount available in electronic credit ledger to discharge his liability towards output tax in excess of 99 per cent of tax liability, in cases where the value of taxable supply ... in a month exceeds Rs 50 lakh," the CBIC said.
GST officers can now launch prosecution against offenders in cases where the amount of evasion or misuse of input tax credit is more than Rs 5 crore, the finance ministry has said. However, this monetary threshold will not be applicable in the case of habitual evaders or in cases where arrests have been made at the time of investigation. "One of the important considerations for deciding whether prosecution should be launched is the availability of adequate evidence," the GST investigation wing under the finance ministry said, while issuing instructions for launching prosecution.
The GST intelligence unit detected tax evasion of more than Rs 1.98 lakh crore last year and arrested 140 masterminds who were involved in defrauding the exchequer, the finance ministry said on Thursday. In 2023, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) detected significant GST evasion in diverse sectors like online gaming, casinos, insurance and secondment (import of manpower services). "DGGI has achieved an increase in detection of cases of evasion and voluntary payments. In 2023, DGGI detected 6,323 cases involving evasion of duty of Rs 1,98,324 crore with a voluntary payment of Rs 28,362 crore.
The GST Council had given the option to real estate companies to either opt for old rates of 12% (for residential) and 8 per cent (affordable housing) with ITC benefits or the new tax rates of 5% for residential units and 1% for affordable housing without the benefit of adjusting the credit on inputs used during construction.
The highest-ever goods and services tax (GST) evasion has been done by the online money gaming industry.
GST rates on under-construction houses maybe reduced from 12 pc with input tax credit to 5 pc without ITC. Similarly, the rate for under-construction affordable houses could come down to 3 per cent without input tax credit, from the current 8 per cent.
Telecom services providers have urged the Ministry of Finance to suspend the universal service obligation (USOF) till the existing corpus is exhausted. In their Budget recommendations, they have also pressed for an exemption from the service tax on "assignment of right to use natural resources" and the slashing of Customs duty on telecom equipment to zero. The Cellular Operators Association of India (Coai), which represents private sector telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea, called for abolishment of USOF levy.
Adding petrol and diesel to GST was a challenging task due to their significant role as revenue generators for both the central and state governments.
With Goods and Services Tax (GST) officers under pressure to exceed the Rs 1-trillion collection mark per month, industry has faced a barrage of recovery notices and summons issued over the last one month across sectors, according to company executives. Industry bodies have claimed harassment by field officers, blocking of input tax credit, cancellation of GST registration, threats of arrest and steep penalties, impacting their working capital and operations. Company executives pointed at an atmosphere of apprehension and fear due to such notices and summons.
The move will help address apprehensions as well as potential disputes on various computational and transitional issues such as the loss of input credits and pricing that were bound to arise on account of the change.
Govt doesn't buy restaurants' input tax excuse and has swing into action and looking into profiteering complaints on social media against prominent restaurant and franchise chains.
GST authorities have detected GST fraud of Rs 55,575 crore over the last two years and arrested over 700 persons for causing loss to the exchequer, an official said on Thursday. Over 22,300 fake GST identification numbers (GSTIN) were detected by the officers of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI). The government on November 9, 2020, launched a nationwide special drive against unscrupulous entities for availing and passing on Input Tax Credit (ITC) fraudulently by issuing fake/bogus invoices, thereby evading Goods and Services Tax (GST).
Reliance General Insurance Company (RGIC), a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, finds itself in a bind as the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) has issued multiple Show Cause Notices (SCNs) amounting to Rs 922.6 crore. This development comes at a time when Reliance Capital is currently undergoing a debt resolution under the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) process in which the Hinduja group has emerged the winner. The Hinduja acquisition is currently awaiting the Supreme Court's approval after the Torrent group, the winner of the first round, challenged the second auction conducted by the lenders of Reliance Capital.
As taxpayers face technical glitch on the GST portal, the government on Tuesday said it is considering extending the April tax payment deadline and has directed Infosys for early resolution of the problem. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) said a technical glitch has been reported by Infosys in generation of April 2022 GSTR-2B and auto-population of GSTR-3B on portal. "Infosys has been directed by Govt for early resolution. Technical team is working to provide GSTR-2B & correct auto-populated GSTR-3B at the earliest," the CBIC tweeted.
Experts said the rate hike would improve working capital position of the manufactures as it would correct the inverted duty structure but may lead to increase in price of the finished goods.
Experts said this will mean that companies, which have offices in multiple states, will have to raise Goods and Services Tax invoice for functions performed by employees in head office that has helped branches in other states.
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.
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.
Tata Starbucks had hiked the base price of one its coffee variant after the GST Council cut tax rates on restaurants from 18 per cent to 5 per cent with effect from November 15, 2017.
Central Board of Excise and Customs Chairperson Vanaja Sarna said there will be genuine errors due to lack of understanding in the initial days. "CBEC has enforcement authorities and I have specifically said that the first three to six months are a go-slow.... I don't want small cases to be made," Sarna said at a CII event.
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.
With exporters' claim for over five months still pending, liquidity has been wiped out and the process of finalising new contracts has been held up.
Realtors' body CREDAI on Monday said the cost of construction has gone up by 20-25 per cent, mainly during the last 45 days, due to steep rise in prices of raw materials like steel, and builders will be forced to increase property prices from next month by an average 10-15 per cent. CREDAI-MCHI, the Maharashtra chapter of CREDAI, demanded that the central as well as state governments consider giving relief to the industry by reducing stamp duty and GST rates, besides allowing input tax credit (ITC) to developers. The association said it would not advise member developers to stop construction works as of now, but if the price rise continues then builders would have no option but to halt works at project sites and defer purchase of raw materials.
Provisions in the Central GST Act say reduction in GST rates or the benefit of ITC must be passed on to consumers.
The GoM is likely to submit an interim report to the Council on pruning the list of items that at present do not attract the levy.
In the year-long crackdown on tax evasion, the GST authorities have unearthed over Rs 35,000 crore of tax fraud committed by misuse of input tax credit provision under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. During the 2020-21 financial year, the CGST zones and the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) booked about 8,000 cases involving fake ITC of over Rs 35,000 crore, a statement from CBIC said. Under the GST regime, at the time of paying tax on output, entities can reduce the tax they have already paid on inputs.
Union budget was mildly for cable broadcasting industry and DTH.
No longer a discretion of the tax administrator, the audit of returns filed by taxpayers is now based on a selection by algorithms, notes Tarun Bajaj.
Restricting the input credit is not a good idea for any sector, particularly real estate which requires more formalisation.
Top gainers in the Sensex pack include Yes Bank, TCS, Infosys, IndusInd Bank, HCL Tech, Bharti Airtel, HDFC, Sun Pharma, Bajaj Auto, ICICI Bank, Vedanta, Hero MotoCorp, ITC, Bajaj Finance, M&M and Tata Steel, surging up to 3.24 per cent.
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.
GST council may propose a faster refund procedure, deferment of electronic way bill, further simplification of composition scheme
In another round of economic booster, Sitharaman announced steps to help homebuyers and push exports.
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.
Goods like chocolates, chewing gum, shampoo, deodorant, shoe polish, detergents, nutrition drinks and marble will now attract 18% GST>
Rama Krishna Sangu, partner, Manohar Chowdhry & Associates, Chartered Accountants, and a member of the Indirect Tax Committee of ICAI, fielded readers' questions on GST on Rediff Chat.
There is much work to be done to design a good GST.
Appearing on Rediff Chat, G Srikanth, partner in GSV Associates, Chartered Accountants, Chennai, and member of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants, answered readers' queries on the Goods and Services Act.
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