Goods and GST Bill passed

[Ganeshan Kalyani]

Dear All,

GST Bill is passed in Rajya Sabha on 03. 08.2016.

A panel under chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian has recommended a revenue-neutral rate of 15-15.5%, with a standard rate of 17-18% be levied on most goods and all services.

But, there has been no agreement yet on rates of various goods and services, which remains a tricky issue. According to the Bill, passed in the Lok Sabha in May 2015, the rates were to be decided by a GST council headed by the central finance minister with state finance ministers as members.

Let us wait.

Thanks.

[YAGAY and SUN]

Once these GST Bills are cleared by Parliament, the states will then take the state GST Bill to their respective assemblies.

[YAGAY and SUN]

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[YAGAY and SUN]

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[YAGAY and SUN]

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[YAGAY and SUN]

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[YAGAY and SUN]

GST would reduce tax load on property buyers.

[YAGAY and SUN]

Don’t keep punching new holes in GST.

[YAGAY and SUN]

Greenply: preparing for a better future after GST

Greenply getting ready to meet the expected higher demand as a result of implementation of GST, which may encourage a shift from unorganized to organized markets

[YAGAY and SUN]

MINISTRY OF FINANCE (DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE) CENTRAL BOARD OF EXCISE AND CUSTOMS

OFFICE ORDER

Dated: March 24, 2017

Government sets up Working Groups to address peculiar problems of industry

WITH the Union Government setting the stage for the passage of the GST Bills, the GST Council has set up Working Groups to address peculiar problems of some of the sectors for their hassle-free transition into the new tax regime. Some of the key issues are:

i. Services provided between establishments of same entity without invoice or payment in certain sectors with high volumes of transactions with operations spread on a country-wide basis;

ii. Compliance challenges for small and medium sector in an automated environment with end-to-end matching of invoices;

iii. Issues raised by sectors employing large work force and with vast disparity, e.g., textiles;

iv. Special regime in sectors with disproportionate high value with relatively lesser value addition and large number of job workers;

v. Cascading due to the exclusion of certain products from the GST and commitments relating fiscal stability clause in Production Sharing Contracts;

vi. Issues due to existing abatements in transport sector together with compliance challenges;

vii. Critical infrastructure of the country

viii. Exports, including value addition and manufacturing in domestic tariff area (DTA) for export /EOUs and SEZs.

ix. Government services to obtain clarity as to what constitutes a taxable supply for consideration.

Recognizing all such concerns, it has been decided to set up some Working Groups to address the concerns of some key sectors:

a. Banking, Financial : Upender Gupta, Commissioner, GST and Insurance Sector

b. Telecommunication : Amitabh Kumar, JS, TRU-II

c. Exports, including EOUs and SEZs : Dr Tejpal Singh, ADG, DGEP, Manish Sinha, Commissioner, CX

d. IT /ITES : M. Vinod Kumar, Chief Commissioner

e. Transport and Logistics : J. M. Kennedy, ADG DGRI (Road, rail, air, sea, pipelines, airport, sea port)

f. Textiles: Yogendra Garg, Commissioner CX.

g. MSMEs, including job work : Manish Sinha, Commissioner CX

h. Oil & Gas (Upstream and Downstream) : P. K. Jain, Chief Commissioner (AR)

i. Gems and Jewellery : Reyaz Ahmad, Director TRU

j. Services received and provided by : D. P. Nagendra Kumar, Pr. Commissioner the Government

The Working Groups have been directed to take a quick look at the key issues and suggest ways and means to overcome the key concerns. They may interact with concerned administrative ministries and key Industry bodies/associations, professionals and other suitable persons.

The emphasis of the Groups would be on procedural simplification and possible rate structure and will have to submit their reports latest by April 10, 2017.

Based on their initial reports, decision on further action to expand the working groups by including officers from the state governments may be taken.

(F. No. 349/36/2017-GST)

(Ram Tirath) Member (Budget & GST)

[YAGAY and SUN]

Ministry of Finance

Release ID: 159886

24-March, 2017 16:54 IST

Releasing of GST Compensation to States

Pending introduction of GST in the Country, Union Cabinet in its meeting held on 17.03.2015, decided for payment of 100% CST compensation to the States/UTs for year 2010-11, 75% CST compensation for year 2011-12 and 50% CST Compensation for year 2012-13 to be worked out as per guideline dated 22.08.2008. Accordingly, full CST compensation for year 2010-11 and 2011-12 has been released to the States during FY 2014-15 & 2015-16. ₹ 11709.4 cr. CST compensation is admissible to States/UTs for year 2012-13. Out of which 1st installment of CST compensation amount ₹ 5854.73 cr. has been released to the States/UTs in July, 2016. Balance amount of ₹ 5854.69 cr. CST compensation for year 2012-13 is proposed to be released during current FY. This is the final payment of CST compensation to the States/UTs.

This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

*****

DSM/KA ()

[YAGAY and SUN]

Cabinet

(Release ID :159759)

22-March, 2017 20:57 IST

Cabinet approves Amendment of in the Customs and Excise Act, relating to abolition of cesses and surcharges on various goods and services to facilitate implementation of GST Regime

Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the following proposals: 

 

i. Amendment to the Customs Act, 1962;

ii. Amendments to the Customs Tariff Act, 1975;

iii. Amendment to the Central Excise Act, 1944;

iv. Repeal of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985; and

v. Amendment or repeal of the provisions relating to Acts under which cesses are levied.

 

The above proposals will result in the following benefits:

 

i. Insertion of Sections 108A and 108B in the Customs Act, 1962 seeks to provide for furnishing of information relating to import/export of goods by specified persons to enable analysis and detection of cases of unter/over-valuation in imports and exports, misuse of export promotion schemes including the Drawback Scheme and violations of the provisions of the Customs Act and various other laws under which Customs officials have been authorized to effectively implement these laws; and

 

ii. Amendments or repeal of various provisions of other Acts which will no longer be relevant consequent upon roll out of GST will result in cleansing of the irrelevant portions from the Statute Book and reduce multiplicity of taxes.

[YAGAY and SUN]

GST Suggestion:

Schedule containing list of Capital Goods be annexed to the Draft Law and should include items newly included in recent amendments of CENVAT Credit rules, 2004.

[YAGAY and SUN]

Works contract, transfer of right to use has been defined as “service” in GST Law but section 366(29A) has not been deleted. This needs to be deleted.

[YAGAY and SUN]

Section 154 should provide for dealing with refund claims made after appointed date but related to earlier period. This is not provided yet in the transitional provisions

[YAGAY and SUN]

The input tax credit if any left in electronic credit ledger be allowed to be set off against future liability or be refunded.

[YAGAY and SUN]

A State-wise single registration for a taxpayer for filing returns, paying taxes, and to fulfil other compliance requirements. Most of the compliance requirements would be fulfilled online, thus leaving very little room for physical interface between the taxpayer and the tax official.

[YAGAY and SUN]

A taxpayer has to file one single return state-wise to report all his supplies, whether made within or outside the State or exported out of the country and pay the applicable taxes on them. Such taxes can be Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), State Goods and Services Tax (SGST), Union Territory Goods and Services Tax (UTGST) and Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST).

[YAGAY and SUN]

A business entity with an annual turnover of up to ₹ 20 lakhs would not be required to take registration in the GST regime, unless he voluntarily chooses to do so to be a part of the input tax credit (ITC) chain. The annual turnover threshold in the Special Category States (as enumerated in Article 279A of the Constitution such as Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Assam and the other States of the North-East) for not taking registration is ₹ 10 lakhs.

[YAGAY and SUN]

A business entity with turnover up to ₹ 50 lakhs can avail the benefit of a composition scheme under which it has to pay a much lower rate of tax and has to fulfil very minimal compliance requirements. The Composition Scheme is available for all traders, select manufacturing sectors and for restaurants in the services sector.

 

[YAGAY and SUN]

In order to prevent cascading of taxes, ITC would be admissible on all goods and services used in the course or furtherance of business, except on a few items listed in the Law.

AI Summary

Goods and Services Tax consolidation creates a dual GST framework with GST Council oversight and a shared IT platform for compliance.
Goods and Services Tax establishes a destination based, dual tax framework subsuming central and state indirect levies, administered through a GST Council and implemented via a shared IT platform (GSTN). The model law sets out registration and return regimes, HSN/SAC classification by turnover bands, input tax credit carry forward, composition and reverse charge rules, refund and valuation procedures, compensation to states during transition, and institutional arrangements for cross empowerment, adjudication and dispute resolution.