Budget 2022 | ‘Roll back GST hike on mobile phones, better internet connectivity for online classes, tax sops’, industry experts share wishlist

 







Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will make the Budget 2022 announcement next week and all sectors are awaiting relief to ensure ease of doing business, especially given the pandemic situation at hand. But, what does the common man want?

In this episode of Budget Podcast, CNBCTV18.com’s Kanishka Sarkar shares the expectations of sectors including infrastructure, education, telecom, and insurance, and how the proposed changes can impact the common man.

After the government has rationalised calculation of ‘Adjusted Gross Revenue’ (‘AGR’), reduced the bank guarantee requirements and interest rates on delayed payments of license fee and allowed 100 percent foreign direct investment (FDI), the telecom sector is now looking for support on various tax and policy-related matters.

Given that the sector is primarily dependent on the import of core manufacturing equipment and the accumulation of input tax credit under GST, Bipin Sapra, Tax Partner - Indirect Tax Services, EY, says the alternative of either allowing refund of accumulated input tax credit or enabling the adjustment of the same against other statutory levies would propel the growth.

He has also demanded the increase in GST rate on mobile phones from 18 percent to 12 percent be rolled back to enable a major population percentage to switch from feature phones to smartphones.

Meanwhile, Dr Pankaj Sharma, Director at JK Lakshmipat University, stated that quality education has become a distant dream for many due to the widening gap in access to education. Therefore, he thinks the government should announce multiple schemes to enhance better internet connectivity infrastructure so that last-mile connectivity is ensured.

He also suggested that the curriculum in the higher education institutes should be job-ready so that drop-out rates can be curtailed. He pointed out that India’s education expenditure is only 4.6 percent of its total GDP and the government must up it to at least 6 percent.

Alka Goel, founding partner at Alkemi Growth Capital, called for incentives or subsidies linked to job creation for companies. The government can continue to focus on tax rate simplification and tax-related compliances. This could include reduction in GSTs on certain categories, improving subsidies on the adoption of new technology, and increasing the tax exemption limit, she added.

The common Indian’s forever expectation, on the other hand, is that of having more money in hand. According to Nirav Karkera, head of research, Fisdom, what tops common Indian’s wishlist is a revision of the Section 80C limit, which was last raised in 2014 to Rs 1.5 lakh. He also called for a focus on rental housing with the inclusion of house rent as an eligible deduction under the new concessional tax regime.



Download our App to get knowledge updates: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app.gstmitra


Join Our Telegram Channel for more updates:https://t.me/praveengst














Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Centre appeals against ruling on levy of GST on maintenance charges to resident welfare associations

Image
  The Centre has preferred a writ appeal before the Madras High Court against a single judge's order that flat or villa owners paying more than ₹7,500 a month towards maintenance charges to their residents’ welfare associations must pay Goods and Services Tax (GST) at the rate of 18% only for the amount exceeding ₹7,500 and not for the entire monthly contribution. Justices T.S. Sivagnanam and Sathi Kumar Sukumara Kurup on Wednesday allowed an application filed by the Centre to dispense with production of a certified copy of the judgment passed by Justice Anita Sumanth recently and directed the Registry to list the appeal for admission in the usual course. Justice Sumanth had in July this year quashed an order passed by the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR) on June 21, 2019 as well as a consequent circular issued by the Department of Revenue under the Union Finance Ministry on July 22, 2019 since both of them had insisted upon collecting GST for entire monthly contribution. The jud...
Read more

Seven key things to know before filing income tax return (ITR) for FY21

Image
  The last date to file income tax return for the financial year 2020-21 has been extended to September 30, 2021. Although there is more than two months left for the deadline to end, it is always recommended to complete the task as soon as possible and not to wait for the last minute. Worth mentioning here is that the income tax department last month launched a new e-filing portal (www.incometax.gov.in) to speed up the processing of tax returns. The I-T department will soon launch a mobile application, having all the features of the new portal. This year taxpayers have to take care of the following changes in the ITR filing process. 1) A new utility named JSON has been launched for filing tax return forms for FY21. At present, only three forms, ITR 1, 2 and 4 have been released. These new forms will import pre-fill data such as personal details, salary income, dividend income, interest income, capital gains and all the information available in Form 26AS. 2) Taxpayers will have the ...
Read more

Income Tax Dept detects ₹350 cr unaccounted cash receipts after raid in Rajkot

Image
  The Income Tax Department carried out a search and seizure operation on a real estate group based in Gujarat's Rajkot and found unaccounted cash receipts in various projects of approximately ₹350 crore, the Finance Ministry said on Friday. The group is among Gujarat’s prominent real estate builders and developers and is actively engaged in real estate, construction and land trading businesses in and around Rajkot. More than 40 premises were covered in the search operation. During the course of operation, many incriminating documents and digital evidences were seized indicating involvement of the group in unaccounted transactions. The IT sleuths found substantial evidence of transactions outside the regular books of accounts, unaccounted cash expenses, cash advances received and interest paid in cash. Evidence of on-money payments in real estate projects-flats, shops and land deals has also been found. Total unaccounted cash receipts in various projects of approximately ₹350 crore...
Read more