Recently, in 23rd GST Council Meeting held in Guwahati, the Council revised rate structures under newly implemented tax reform. Impressive decisions have been taken by the tax officials and state finance ministers to reduce the tax burden on small business enterprises (SMEs). Some of the impressive measures taken by the tax officials in recent meeting are mentioned below:-
Filing Returns Extended by the Government Until 31st March
Under GST regime, it was essential for the businesses to file the details of summary returns in every month in GSTR 3B form and payment of taxes on the basis of self- assessment. It was anticipated that the filing returns of GSTR 3B form will be used until December and currently invoice matching process is going on. Due to the technical glitches at GSTN portal, the taxpayers are facing problems in filing returns and invoice matching. Therefore, the filing of GSTR 3B summary returns has been extended by the government until March. All the taxpayers will file returns in GSTR- 3B form along with the payment of taxes by 20th of following until March 2018. Business enterprises who have ‘nil’ liability will be required to pay only Rs 20 per day as a penalty.
Composition Scheme
The annual turnover threshold limit for the composition scheme have been increased by the GST council from Rs 1 crores to Rs 2 crores which were higher than the previous VAT laws but lower than the threshold limit of Rs 1.5 crores under excise duty for manufacturing firms.
Earlier the tax rates for the composition scheme holders was 1 percent for traders, 2 percent for manufacturing firms now have been reduced by the government to 1 percent for both traders and manufacturing firms. This tax rates will be applied to their annual taxable turnover.
Extended Time to File Sales Returns
The deadlines for filing the returns of GSTR 1 form have been extended by the government. Businesses with an annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crores now will be required to file GSTR 1 Quarterly in the current financial year. Quarterly Returns for the month of September and December businesses will have to file until 31st December and until 15th February respectively whereas for the March quarter until 30th April. Businesses with an annual turnover of more than Rs 1.5 crores will have to file their detailed sales returns until the 10th of the succeeding month by the 40th day.
Tax Rates Reduced
The tax rates have been reduced by the GST Council on almost 80 percent of the items in the 28 percent slab rate, generally, these are frequently used items. In respect of this, only 4 percent of the items are based on 4- digit HSN code will now be charged 28 percent or higher taxation rates. Tax rates on other some other items also have been slashed by the Council from 18 percent to 12 percent and from 12 percent to 5 percent.
GST Council has to fix the anomalies first along with changing the tax rates on commonly used items. When would the GST on existing car leases be fixed? As there is the huge disparity between car lease prior to 1st July and car leases after July 1st because of GST transition.
Please reduce the tax rate of glass bottles from 18% to 5%.