Vendors arrange goods at their handicraft stalls at the Janpath Market in New Delhi, India (Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg)
8 years ago
Jan 19, 2018
In its last meeting today ahead of the Union Budget 2018-19, the Goods and Services Tax Council is expected to discuss a slew of changes in the GST Law along with some tweaks in the tax rates.
Rs 35,000 crore of Integrated GST will be provisionally divided between the Centre and states, Jaitley said. The division of IGST credit will boost the indirect tax position of both the central and state governments, he added.
The fitment committee will fix the rates for about 40 handicraft items; a few more items may be added to the list. The committee’s recommendations on 29 goods and 53 categories of services have been accepted by the GST Council, Jaitley said.
New rates for 29 goods and 53 services categories will come into force from Jan. 25, he added.
The e-way bill system began on a trial basis on Jan. 15, Jaitley said.
Implementation of the inter-state e-way bill has been made mandatory from Feb 1. Fifteen states have informed the Council that they will start intra-state the e-way bill from the same month, he added.
The GST rate on 29 items has been cut to zero percent, said Uttarakhand Finance Minister Prakash Pant said. He added that the rates of 49 other items were reduced.
The Council will hold a video conference in 10 days to discuss simplification of the returns filing process, Pant told reporters.
There was no decision on real estate yet, although a presentation was made to the GST Council, he added.
Indian states are concerned about the drop in compensation that they receive from the Centre after the implementation of GST, said Yanamala Ramkrishnudu, finance minister of Andhra Pradesh, according to Bloomberg.
Ramakrishnudu said that states face a revenue shortfall of Rs 1.35 lakh crore due to GST, which is also leading to lower tax compensation, Bloomberg reported.
In its last meeting today ahead of the Union Budget 2018-19, the Goods and Services Tax Council is expected to discuss a slew of changes in the GST Law along with some tweaks in the tax rates.
The 25th meeting of the Council is currently underway at New Delhi chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
The apex decision making body of the new indirect tax regime may also take up changes to simplify the composition scheme further and finalise filing of a single return under the new indirect tax regime from next financial year, two government officials told BloombergQuint yesterday.
