The GST Council is again to set its 17th meeting on Sunday to discuss all those long awaited topic namely anti-profiteering and the e-way bill which was opposed by many sectors in which the transport sector was the major one. The council and the chairperson finance minister Arun Jaitley will be discussing all the provisions along with the review of those items which were raised concerns recently.
It is speculated that the council will be discussing the draft GST rules and related forms for an advance ruling, appeals and revision, and assessment and audit. Recently in its 16th meeting, the council has revised the tax rates of various items including agarbatti, packaged food and insulin.
While talking about the hybrid cars, which were also presented for the review, the GST council has not considered the issues and presentation of the sector as the details and report were not syncing with the original scenario being found by the tax officials. The sector has been aching with the tax rates being set upon as the tax rates surge at 28 percent with 15 percent extra cess which is considered too high for the emerging sector.
The GST e-way bill is also under the scanner as the presentation were made with various negotiations, while the GST network is also in the queue which is requesting for the assimilating of a new IT partner for some assistance. While a version of the draft of RFP is there in public domain for the feedback till June 7.
The issues regarding the e-way bill were concerned with the lowness of transit limit of 50 thousand and while the timeline for the execution of transporting procedures was “impractical and removed from reality”. It was also considered that the e-way could be applied to all the items whether they are evasion prone or not, excluding the point of distinction between them.
While coming to the anti-profiteering provision, the authority which will be having ultimate power for levying any penalty will be having some clear cut instruction. A standing committee will be appointed for all the complaints received by Anonymous phasing out any company found in practices not matching with those included in the provision of anti-profiteering.
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After which, the committee will be deciding that whether an enquiry must be initiated against the convicted organisation over the charges of Anti-profiteering and to be denoted that the committee holds the decision to do this for any further investigation.
Now a very interesting point here is to note that the Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian raised a suggestion which is a positive and healthy move towards the consumer protections scheme. The suggestions mentioned that of including a sunset clause of nine months to one year. The profiteering clause directs that the taxpayers will be commanded to reduce the prices and return the calculated amount which was originally not passed to the consumers by the way of commensurate reduction in the prices added up to 18 percent interest rate or make a recovery of the amount which was not returned within the time period of 30 days that would be deposited in the Consumer welfare fund.
