GST reset report to be in by April

 








Group of Ministers led by Bommai could review 18% rate on health insurance too



A ministerial panel under the GST Council is expected to submit its recommendations on the reset of GST rates and slabs by April, and may review the tax levies on health insurance and restaurants as part of the exercise, a top Finance Ministry official said on Wednesday.


The group of ministers, led by Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj S. Bommai, has been tasked with reviewing and rationalising GST rates on several goods and services as well as revisiting the multiple tax rates currently levied under the indirect tax regime.
‘Temper expectations’


Noting that the committee would ‘likely give its report within one or two months’, Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj, however, sought to moderate expectations about a significantly lower rate regime by citing States’ concerns about the outlook for revenue given that they would stop receiving GST Compensation from July.


Responding to industry suggestions to pare the high 18% GST rate on health insurance, he advised them to flag the issue to the Bommai ministerial committee.


I take that point. I have myself worked in the insurance side and somewhat understand what you are saying but the only thing we need to see is that we don’t go the way some of the developed nations have gone, where the health costs go up not just because of inflation but because of insurance,” Mr. Bajaj said at an interaction with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).


Proposals from the restaurant industry to revert to a higher tax bracket with input tax credits instead of a 5% GST without credits, as well as a request to reduce the GST Compensation Cess levied on coal, could be taken up at the GST Council, the official suggested.


“I appreciate that the GST rate on some items need to be brought down to bring equity and parity with others, but there is also a need to look at the other side… States are going to face a massive shortfall of funds, maybe exceeding ₹1 lakh crore overall, so we need to look at that aspect as well,” he pointed out.


“I am not at all saying because of that macro picture, we should not look at the micro adjustments that need to be made,” Mr. Bajaj underlined, after highlighting the gap between the original revenue neutral rate of 15.3% envisaged for GST and the currently effective rate of 11.6%.


Source:https://www.thehindu.com/business/gst-reset-report-to-be-in-by-april/article38403977.ece

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