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PM's Eco Council Lists 10 Areas to Push Growth Advisory body identifies priorities, not in favour of relaxing fiscal goals The recently reconstituted Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) has identified 10 priority areas for reviving growth and employment in the next six months such as jobs, monetary policy, public spending and agriculture.“The entire thrust of the council will be on giving specific implementable recommendations to the PM after consulting all stakeholder ministries,“ Bibek Debroy , cha irman of the council, said after its first meeting on Wednesday . The 10 themes are economic growth; employment and job creation; informal sector and integration; fiscal framework; mone tary policy; public expenditure; institutions of economic governance; agriculture and animal husbandry; patterns of consumption; and production and social sector. From Page 1 Debroy said the council will draft suggestions on five of these at its next meeting in November, keeping...

Only 70% file detailed return under GST in July Deadline ends,after two exdtenions; govt assess reasons for low rate of compliance About 70 per cent of the assessees under the goods and services tax (GST) had filed detailed sales returns for July as on Tuesday, the official deadline.Low compliance, said officials.No further extension was given; the deadline had been extended twice earlier.About 4.59 million entities of the eligible 6.5 mn filed the GSTR1 return, for the first month of GST. “We will assess why many people have not filed. We have already sent reminders to those who filed GSTR3B, the summarised return form, but not GSTR1,” saidaGST Network GSTN) official. The deadline to file GSTR1 was extended by a month from September 10 at the GST Council meeting last month in Hyderabad.Earlier, the deadline was extended from September 5 on account of technical issues with GSTN.If a taxpayer fails to file GSTR1 by the deadline, the buyer of his products would face difficulty in...

Govt reduces GST on bunker fuels India has reduced the goods and service tax (GST) on marine fuel oil, known as bunker fuel, to 5 percent for all vessels, the government said on Wednesday, which should help the country’s fuel sellers compete with other lower-tax ports in Asia.India’s nation wide GST taxed bunker fuel sales at 18 percent when it was implemented on July 1. The GST replaced state value-added taxes that were typically between zero and 5 percent. India’s GST Council decided to reduce the tax on the bunker fuel sales after an Oct. 6 meeting where it recommended assessing GST rates for the bunker fuel sales, natural gas transportation and for offshore oil and gas field services, according to the statement the Council posted on Twitter.“This would provide limited relief to the bunker fuel sellers that had seen their market shifting to Colombo,” a trade source said. Like Asian bunkering hubs in Singapore and Fujairah, Sri Lanka levies no taxes on bunker fuel oil. For the of...

DeMo,GST Have Put Eco on Stronger Track: FM Defends govt's move to maintain secrecy over note recall, says transparency would have been "greatest instrument of fraud"Finance minister Arun Jaitley has defended the go vernment's decision to maintain secrecy over demonetisation, sa ying transparency in this case would have been the “greatest in strument of fraud“.Jaitley, on a week-long visit to the US to attend annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said the series of reforms like demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax (GST) has put Indian economy on a “far more stronger track“. “These are institutional re forms. These are structural changes. And these structural changes, I think have put the Indian economy on a far more sound track so that we can look forward for a much cleaner much bigger India economy in the days and years to come,“ Jaitley said, addressing the students of Columbia University in New York.He said announcing the...

Import of Oil-Drilling Rigs Kept Out of GST Purview Move to boost local exploration and production; tax rate cut on bunker fuel to 5% from 12%Import of oil-drilling rigs has been exempted from the goods and services tax (GST) levy to give a boost to domestic exploration and production, the government has said. The GST Council has also cut tax rate on bunker fuel to 5% from 12%.Nearly all deep sea drilling rigs are imported, and a bulk of the ones used in shallow waters to drill wells to probe and produce oil and gas are also of foreign origin. Petrol, diesel, jet fuel, natural gas and crude oil have been kept out of the GST regime, resulting in continuation of cascading effect of tax-on-tax.The issue had figured during the meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi held on Monday with CEOs of top international and Indian energy firms. They demanded the inclusion of fuels, especially natural gas, in the GST regime.The council has also decided that offshore works contract services with a...