Skip to main content

Most Provisions of GST draft model bill approved by council

By
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, comprising the Union finance minister and state representatives, mainly their finance ministers, cleared most of the draft model GST Bill on Thursday.
This leaves mainly the contentious issue of administrative turf between the Centre and states for Friday. Some state finance ministers did not rule out the Centre resorting to voting for resolving the issue of control over assessees under the proposed regime.
Beside administrative turf, the Friday meeting will take up the Integrated GST (IGST) and compensation Bills. Agreement over these would be crucial for introducing these in the coming session of Parliament.
"The basic model GST Bill has been concluded. Things we have kept aside, such as the issue of cross-empowerment and IGST, will come for discussion tomorrow," Jammu and Kashmir finance minister Haseeb Drabu told reporters after the meeting. He said it was decided earlier as well to go through the entire draft model law first and clear all procedural parts; that has been done.
The issue of administrative turf has been stuck for some time, despite an initial agreement between Centre and states. While the Centre is pushing for a cross-empowerment model of randomly choosing and dividing five per cent of the assessees between itself and the states, using a computer programme, states want sole control over assessees up to Rs 1.5 crore of annual turnover.
Earlier, it was expected the Bills would be introduced in the winter session of Parliament but that ended last week without the GST Council approving these. A consensus or some other resolution to the issue of administrative control over assessees is a must for the legislations to get into the Budget session. 
M S Mani, senior director, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, said: “It is better if a consensus is achieved on the legislative issues. The need of the hour is to have clarity on several issues, including that of rates and classification so that businesses can be prepared.”
Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac, who could not attend the meeting as he was unwell, told Business Standard over a phone that the contentious issues could be sorted only by voting.
If the Bills are introduced in the Budget session, there is hope, though dim, of introducing GST from April 1, when the next financial year begins. Last year's constitutional change allows time till September 16 in this regard. After which, the authority lapses unless the rule is amended.
Asked about the demand of some states to raise the compensation amount to Rs 1.5 lakh crore from Rs 50,000 crore a year due to demonetisation, Drabu said: “I don't think we should link the two.”
To a query on whether the rates would be reworked due to demonetisation, Drabu said GST was not even in force when the latter eventy took place. The Council has already agreed on four GST slabs — 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent — and a cess over the peak rate on aerated drinks, luxury cars and tobacco.
Business Standard New Delhi,23rd December 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Household debt up, but India still lags emerging-market economies: RBI

By
  Although household debt in India is rising, driven by increased borrowing from the financial sector, it remains lower than in other emerging-market economies (EMEs), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its Financial Stability Report. It added that non-housing retail loans, largely taken for consumption, accounted for 55 per cent of total household debt.As of December 2024, India’s household debt-to-gross domestic product ratio stood at 41.9 per cent. “...Non-housing retail loans, which are mostly used for consumption purposes, formed 54.9 per cent of total household debt as of March 2025 and 25.7 per cent of disposable income as of March 2024. Moreover, the share of these loans has been growing consistently over the years, and their growth has outpaced that of both housing loans and agriculture and business loans,” the RBI said in its report.Housing loans, by contrast, made up 29 per cent of household debt, and their growth has remained steady. However, disaggregated data sho...
Post a Comment
Read more

External spillovers likely to hit India's financial system: RBI report

By
  While India’s growth remains insulated from global headwinds mainly due to buoyant domestic demand, the domestic financial system could, however, be impacted by external spillovers, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its half yearly Financial Stability Report published on Monday.Furthermore, the rising global trade disputes and intensifying geopolitical hostilities could negatively impact the domestic growth outlook and reduce the demand for bank credit, which has decelerated sharply. “Moreover, it could also lead to increased risk aversion among investors and further corrections in domestic equity markets, which despite the recent correction, remain at the high end of their historical range,” the report said.It noted that there is some build-up of stress, primarily in financial markets, on account of global spillovers, which is reflected in the marginal rise in the financial system stress indicator, an indicator of the stress level in the financial system, compared to its p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Retail inflation cools to a six-year low of 2.82% in May on moderating food prices

By
  New Delhi: Retail inflation in India cooled to its lowest level in over six years in May, helped by a sharp moderation in food prices, according to provisional government data released Thursday.Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based inflation eased to 2.82% year-on-year, down from 3.16% in April and 4.8% in May last year, data from the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) showed. This marks the fourth consecutive month of sub-4% inflation, the longest such streak in at least five years.The data comes just days after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Monetary Policy Committee cut the repo rate by 50 basis points to 5.5%, its third straight cut and a cumulative reduction of 100 basis points since the easing cycle began in February. The move signals a possible pivot from inflation control to supporting growth.Food inflation came in at just 0.99% in May, down from 1.78% in April and a sharp decline from 8.69% a year ago.A Mint poll of 15 economists had projected CPI ...
Post a Comment
Read more