On Sunday, the GST Council of India, in its 17th official meet gave some relaxation on return filing deadline until September and made the terrific anti-profiteering clause more pleasant. Moreover, the council also approved five set of rules and postponed a decision upon the E-Way Bill rule. The upcoming tax reform (GST) is going to be implemented at midnight on June 30, still, the Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala are yet to give their approval on it.
The council also modified the rates of luxury hotels, which gives a bit relief to the states depending upon tourism. The lottery tickets running by state authorities will attract a levy of 12%, whereas the tickets run by private players will attract a higher GST of 28%. At the press conference, the finance minister, Arun Jaitley said that he wished the anti-profiteering rule would not be used.
Explaining the working of the anti-profiteering clause, Hasmukh Adhia, revenue secretary said that the GST implementation committee would pass every complaint, which it receives to the Director General of Safeguard. Adhia explained, “The DG of Safeguard will then take about three months to investigate the complaint and send its findings to the anti-profiteering authority.”
According to the simplified rules for return filing, a taxpayer will only need to file a simple, self-certified return by August 20 for July and by September 20 for August. This process will help in summarizing the inward and outward supplies instead of specifying invoice-wise returns according to GST rules. Still, the assessees will have to file the return with complete details for both months in September. As per Adhia, this will then be matched with the simpler returns which were filed earlier and any difference would result in a fine.
Adhia further added, “We may be able to refund the penalty to consumers in the case of commodities that can be tracked. However, for other commodities, the penalty amount will be deposited in the consumer welfare fund as provided under the GST Act.”
The Finance Minister said that the GSTN registration window was open for more than 30 days for the registration of new businesses. Jaitley said, “So far, 65.6 lakh of the 80.91 lakh existing assessees have migrated to the GSTN. This is a reasonably good number given many current taxpayers would be out of GST ambit due to the annual turnover ceiling of Rs 20 lakh.”
The GST Council recently approved five new sets of rules including advance ruling, appeal and revision, assessment, anti-profiteering and fund settlement. The anti-profiteering authority will basically be a five-member body including the chairman, which will work as a secretary-level officer along with four joint secretary level officers as members.
MS Mani, Senior Director, Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP said that Some issues related to several specific sectors are yet to be decided at the time of extending timelines for filing returns. Mani said, “They may not now see the light of the day before GST rollout.”