In the upcoming GST council meeting which is to be held on 18th January 2018, it is speculated that there would be rate revision of around 70 to 80 products and services. The GST council which is formed of state finance minister and chaired by the union finance minister Arun Jaitley is also expected to simplify the registration process, along with return filing and input tax credit claiming procedures in order to further facilitate the goods and services tax across the nation.
AN official from rate fitment committee stated that “In this meeting, the Council is expected to revise rates of about 25 goods and another 45-55 service. Total 70-80 items’ rates could be revised downward.” The official sources also indicated of the tax reduction on 5-6 irrigation equipment from 18 percent to 12 percent and tax rates of bio-diesel and electric buses from 28 percent to 18 percent.
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Easy Return Filing Under Discussion
The GST council is also discussing some factors to reduce the compliance and process of the returns filing and is currently going through the suggestions of Law Review Committee. The official stated that “Several changes in the law have been suggested by the Law Review Committee. These changes would ensure easing the compliance burden of the taxpayers and in turn, improve the collections under GST.”
The GST council and panel is under discussion to allow a single registration for all those large service providers possibly banks and airlines and having turnover more than 5 crores. Also in an important part of the discussion, the council is also revisiting the suggestion of merging all the 3 GSTR form filing i.e. GSTR 1, GSTR 2 and GSTR 3 into 1 single filing per month other than 3 filing being done in the current time period.
The official stated in this regard that, “The simplification process might take about 6-8 months as changes will have to be done to the software. The new format will have to be put in place so until that time extensions will be given for filings through GSTR-3B.” The council may further accept the suggestion in order to reduce the compliance burden of the taxpayers.
Also in the other discussion, it was said that there are some legislative changes going through the provisions of input tax credit claiming procedure. The official stated that “Traders, businesses have shared their pain points with us. We have reviewed these and we are now trying to remove most of these irritants. This meeting of the Council will try to address as many of these issues as is possible, We will bring in a bill that will be introduced in the Budget Session of Parliament to make the amendments to the law. The states will also make the necessary changes to the state laws and get the approval of the state Assemblies.”
