Skip to main content

Kelkar says single GST rate easy to administer

By
Former finance secretary Vijay Kelkar on Friday advocated a single rate for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) as that would it simpler to administer.
The GST Council has already decided on the fourrate structure for the indirect tax regime, besides a cess.
Giving an example, he said it was better to first build a single-rate GST with a low rate, achieve full mastery of this, and then consider more complex possibilities such as high rates and multiple rates.
Delivering the C D Deshmukh lecture, organised by the National Council of Applied Economic Research, Kelkar said policymaking was required to address market failure, improve efficiency and equity in the society. With regard to taxation, he said it should be stable and simple, giving investors confidence to invest.
A task force constituted by the 13th Finance Commission, headed by Kelkar, had recommended that all goods and services should be taxed at the single GST rate of 12 per cent. It could be split as 5 per cent for the central GST and seven per cent for the state GST.
The GST Council, comprising finance minister, minister of state for revenue and state representatives, particularly their finance ministers, have already agreed on four GST rates — 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent — besides a cess above the peak rate on luxury and demerit goods such as tobacco.
Business Standard New Delhi,28th January 2017

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