Feb 16, 2023
Finance Minister Nirmala
Sitharaman on Wednesday said that should the states agree, petroleum and gas
under the ambit of Goods and Services Tax (GST). "Once the states agree,
we will have petroleum products in the GST," she said.
Speaking at the Post-Budget interactive session with the members of the
industry chamber PHDCCI, the union minister said that the central government is
completely aligning itself with the fiscal consolidation roadmap.
On the Budget, she said that the idea was to ensure that growth momentum should
not be relaxed or diluted.
Feb 15, 2023
The
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) will use the data of
electric meters and property tax to increase the base of goods and services tax
(GST), said Vivek Johri, CBIC Chairman.
When GST was implemented, there was a GST tax base of Rs 45-50 lakh, which has
now increased to Rs 1.4 crore, said Johri. The CBIC Chairman added, "We
feel that there is a good scope for increasing the tax base. We will take the
help of power distribution companies, take the data of electric meters and will
also use the property tax data to increase the tax base of GST."
In an exclusive interview with ANI, the CBIC Chairman said the board's strategy
regarding GST is that collecting revenue is its target, along with that it is
also necessary to increase the tax base.
Feb 15, 2023
Vouchers
are exempted from GST, the Karnataka high court ruled in a recent judgment,
asserting that these don't carry any value and they're not goods or services
either.
"The definition of 'vouchers' under the CGST Act makes it clear that
vouchers are mere instrumentsaccepted as consideration for supply of goods or
services. They have no inherent value of their own," a division bench
headed by Justice PS Dinesh Kumar said.
"As vouchers are considered 'instruments', they would fall under the
definition of 'money'..." as defined by the law, which also "excludes
'money' from the definition of goods and service" and therefore no tax can
be levied on it, the HC said.
Feb 15, 2023
The GST audits undertaken by the indirect tax administration
in the current financial year have led to the detection of ?22,000-crore tax
evasion from nearly 48,000 cases so far, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and
Customs (CBIC) chairman Vivek Johri said in an interview. The indirect tax authority
is now working on analyzing the corporate tax returns filed by businesses with
the Income Tax department and the GST registration data to identify businesses
and traders who ought to take GST registration but have not done so. This is
part of a drive to widen the tax base. Johri also said there is no proposal to
roll back the Finance Bill clarification that input tax credit will not be
available on CSR spending by companies. The budget proposals on customs duty
changes will help several industries achieve self-reliance, Johri said, citing
several examples.
Feb 11, 2023
Unbranded salted snacks, or namkeens and related products,
such as potato chips, bhujiya and gathiya, would suffer 12 per cent goods and
services tax (GST), not five per cent, ruled the Gujarat authority for advance
rulings (AAR).
One Prjajapati Keval Dineshbhai, who intended to
make such snacks, submitted before the AAR that the products are unbranded and
hence should be taxed at five per cent.
The GST rate for various products is set on the
basis of the harmonised system nomenclature (HSN) code. The applicant said that
namkeens fall under the code 210690 and hence would draw the five per cent GST.
Feb 10, 2023
The
finance ministry has projected collections under the goods and services tax
(GST) at an average Rs 1.6 lakh crore per month in the next fiscal against an
estimated Rs 1.4 lakh crore in 2022-23, an increase of about 14 per cent.
The budget has estimated collection under
central GST including compensation cess for the entire fiscal at Rs 9.6- lakh
crore — 12 per cent higher than the revised estimate of FY23, which is Rs
8.5-lakh crore.
Ministry officials has extrapolated state GST
collections from the central one to arrive at the target for the next fiscal.
Collections in the first 10 months of the fiscal
were encouraging with an all-time high monthly collection touching Rs 1.68-lakh
crore in April and the second all-time high of Rs 1.56-lakh crore in January.
So far, in the first ten months, average monthly
gross collection has been Rs 1.49-lakh crore, higher than the requirement of
achieving revised estimate in FY23.
Feb 09, 2023
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday told the
industry that suggestions for lowering the 28% goods and services tax (GST) on
cement will be looked into as a step toward easing construction costs.
The minister said this in response to a suggestion
made at a post-budget interaction organised by the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII). The industry suggestion was that lowering GST on cement could
help both government infrastructure projects as well as projects by the private
sector and by individuals.
Feb 07, 2023
India will not overhaul its Goods and Services Tax (GST)
regime in the next fiscal year, a senior official said on Monday, delaying a
move it has been considering for more than a year to simplify its tax structure
and reduce the burden on consumers.
The country currently has five tax rates for
GST, which was introduced in 2017, bringing numerous state taxes under one
umbrella. They range from 0% to 28%.
In 2021, the government considered overhauling the
tax by merging two of the tax rates, and lowering the levy on a host of items.
Some have criticised the five-year old regime for having too many tiers.
"Right now, we are just looking to maintain
stability (in tax rates), a stable tax regime. Minor changes will always be
there... major taxation change like merger of tax rates, we are not
contemplating in 2023/24,"