GST – CONCEPT & STATUS Updated as on 01st January 2018
GST
Dated:- 15-1-2018
INTRODUCTION:
The introduction of Goods and Services Tax on 1st of July 2017 was a very significant step in the field of indirect tax reforms in India. By amalgamating a large number of Central and State taxes into a single tax, the aim was to mitigate cascading or double taxation in a major way and pave the way for a common national market. From the consumer point of view, the biggest advantage would be in terms of a reduction in the overall tax burden on goods, which was estimated to be around 25%-30%. Introduction of GST would also make Indian products competitive in the domestic and international markets. Studies show that this would have a positive impact on economic growth. Last but not the least, this tax, because of its transparent and self-policing character, would be easier to administer.
GENESIS:
2. The idea of moving towards the GST was first mooted by the then Union Finance Mini
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tates were clearly demarcated in the Constitution with almost no overlap between the respective domains. The Centre had powers to levy tax on the manufacture of goods (except alcoholic liquor for human consumption, opium, narcotics etc.) while the States had powers to levy tax on sale of goods. In case of inter-State sales, the Centre had power to levy a tax (Central Sales Tax) but the tax was collected and retained entirely by the originating States. As for services, it was the Centre alone that was empowered to levy service tax. Since the States were not empowered to levy any tax on the sale or purchase of goods in the course of their importation into or exportation from India, the Centre levied and collected this tax as additional duties of customs, which was in addition to the Basic Customs Duty. This additional duty of customs (commonly known as CVD and SAD) counter balanced excise duties, sales tax, State VAT and other taxes levied on the like domestic products. Introduction of G
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UTGST). The Parliament would have exclusive power to levy GST (integrated tax – IGST) on inter-State trade or commerce (including imports) in goods or services. The Central Government will have the power to levy excise duty in addition to the GST on tobacco and tobacco products. The tax on supply of five specified petroleum products namely crude, high speed diesel, petrol, ATF and natural gas would be levied from a later date on the recommendation of GST Council.
5. A Goods and Services Tax Council (GSTC) was constituted comprising the Union Finance Minister, the Minister of State (Revenue) and the State Finance Ministers to recommend on the GST rate, exemption and thresholds, taxes to be subsumed and other features. This mechanism would ensure some degree of harmonization on different aspects of GST between the Centre and the States as well as across States. One half of the total number of members of GSTC would form quorum in meetings of GSTC. Decision in GSTC would be taken by a maj
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four meetings of the GSTC have been held so far. The following major decisions have been taken by the GSTC:
(i) The threshold exemption limit would be ₹ 20 lakh. For special category States (except J&K) enumerated in article 279A of the Constitution, threshold exemption limit has been fixed at ₹ 10 lakh.
(ii) Composition threshold shall be ₹ 1 crore. As decided in the 23rd meeting of the GSTC, this limit shall be raised to ₹ 1.5 crore after necessary amendments in the Act. Composition scheme shall not be available to inter-State suppliers, service providers (except restaurant service) and specified category of manufacturers. For special category States (except J&K and Uttarakhand) enumerated in article 279A of the Constitution, threshold exemption limit has been fixed at ₹ 75 lakh.
(iii) Existing tax incentive schemes of Central or State governments may be continued by respective government by way of reimbursement through budgetary route. The schemes,
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s to compensate States for any revenue loss on account of implementation of GST. The list of goods and services in case of which reverse charge would be applicable has also been finalized.
(v) The five laws namely CGST Law, UTGST Law, IGST Law, SGST Law and GST Compensation Law have been recommended.
(vi) In order to ensure single interface, all administrative control over 90% of taxpayers having turnover below ₹ 1.5 crore would vest with State tax administration and over 10% with the Central tax administration. Further all administrative control over taxpayers having turnover above ₹ 1.5 crore shall be divided equally in the ratio of 50% each for the Central and State tax administration.
(vii) Powers under the IGST Act shall also be cross-empowered on the same basis as under CGST and SGST Acts with few exceptions.
(viii) Power to collect GST in territorial waters shall be delegated by Central Government to the States.
(ix) Formula and mechanism for GST Compensation Ce
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l taxpayers.
(xiv) Supplies from GTA to unregistered persons has been exempted from tax.
(xv) Registration and operationalization of TDS/TCS provisions has been postponed till 31.03.2018.
(xvi) The e-way bill system shall be introduced nation-wide for all inter-state supplies with effect from 01.02.2018. As regards intra-state supplies, option has been given to States to choose any date on or before 01.06.2018.
(xvii) E-Wallet Scheme shall be introduced for exporters from 01.04.2018 and till then relief for exporters shall be given in form of broadly existing practice.
(xviii) All taxpayers are required to file return FORM GSTR-3B & pay tax on monthly basis.
(xix) Taxpayers with turnover upto ₹ 1.5 Cr are required to file information in FORM GSTR-1 on quarterly basis. Other taxpayers would have to file FORM GSTR-1 on a monthly basis.
(xx) Time period for filing FORM GSTR-2 and FORM GSTR-3 for the months of July, 2017 to March 2018 would be worked out by a Committee of Offi
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vi) Centralized UIN shall be issued to every Foreign Diplomatic Mission / UN Organization by the Central Government.
(xxvii) www.gst.gov.in, managed by GSTN, shall be the Common Goods and Services Tax Electronic Portal.
(xxviii) Rate of interest on delayed payments and delayed refund has been recommended and notified.
(xxix) The GST Council has recommended the rules for National Anti-Profiteering Authority. The National Anti-Profiteering Authority has been constituted having Chairman and four technical Members.
SALIENT FEATURES OF GST:
8. The salient features of GST are as under:
(i) GST would be applicable on “supply” of goods or services as against the present concept of tax on manufacture of goods or on sale of goods or on provision of services.
(ii) GST would be based on the principle of destination based consumption taxation as against the present principle of origin-based taxation.
(iii) It would be a dual GST with the Centre and the States simultaneously levying it on a
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entre:
a) Central Excise Duty;
b) Duties of Excise (Medicinal and Toilet Preparations);
c) Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance);
d) Additional Duties of Excise (Textiles and Textile Products);
e) Additional Duties of Customs (commonly known as CVD);
f) Special Additional Duty of Customs (SAD);
g) Service Tax;
h) Cesses and surcharges insofar as they relate to supply of goods or services.
(ix) State taxes that would be subsumed within the GST are:
a) State VAT;
b) Central Sales Tax;
c) Purchase Tax;
d) Luxury Tax;
e) Entry Tax (All forms);
f) Entertainment Tax (except those levied by the local bodies);
g) Taxes on advertisements;
h) Taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling;
i) State cesses and surcharges insofar as they relate to supply of goods or services.
(x) GST would apply to all goods and services except Alcohol for human consumption.
(xi) GST on five specified petroleum products (Crude, Petrol, Diesel, ATF & Natural gas) would be applicabl
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.
(xiv) The list of exempted goods and services would be kept to a minimum and it would be harmonized for the Centre and the States as well as across States as far as possible.
(xv) All Exports and supplies to SEZs and SEZ units would be zero-rated.
(xvi) Credit of CGST paid on inputs may be used only for paying CGST on the output and the credit of SGST/UTGST paid on inputs may be used only for paying SGST/UTGST. In other words, the two streams of input tax credit (ITC) cannot be cross utilized, except in specified circumstances of inter-State supplies for payment of IGST. The credit would be permitted to be utilized in the following manner:
a) ITC of CGST allowed for payment of CGST & IGST in that order;
b) ITC of SGST allowed for payment of SGST & IGST in that order;
c) ITC of UTGST allowed for payment of UTGST & IGST in that order;
d) ITC of IGST allowed for payment of IGST, CGST & SGST/UTGST in that order.
ITC of CGST cannot be used for payment of SGST/UTGST and vice versa.
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Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS).
(xxi) Obligation on certain persons including government departments, local authorities and government agencies, who are recipients of supply, to deduct tax at the rate of 1% from the payment made or credited to the supplier where total value of supply, under a contract, exceeds two lakh and fifty thousand rupees. The provision for TDS has not been operationalized yet.
(xxii) Refund of tax to be sought by taxpayer or by any other person who has borne the incidence of tax within two years from the relevant date.
(xxiii) Obligation on electronic commerce operators to collect 'tax at source', at such rate not exceeding two per cent. (2%) of net value of taxable supplies, out of payments to suppliers supplying goods or services through their portals. The provision for TCS has not been operationalized yet.
(xxiv) System of self-assessment of the taxes payable by the registered person.
(xxv) Audit of registered persons to be conducted in order to ver
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s relating to Tribunal in respective SGST Act.
(xxx) Provision for penalties for contravention of the provision of the proposed legislation has been made.
(xxxi) Advance Ruling Authority would be constituted by States in order to enable the taxpayer to seek a binding clarity on taxation matters from the department. Centre would adopt such authority under CGST Act.
(xxxii) An anti-profiteering clause has been provided in order to ensure that business passes on the benefit of reduced tax incidence on goods or services or both to the consumers.
(xxxiii) Elaborate transitional provisions have been provided for smooth transition of existing taxpayers to GST regime.
BENEFITS OF GST:
(A) Make in India:
(i) Will help to create a unified common national market for India, giving a boost to Foreign investment and “Make in India” campaign;
(ii) Will prevent cascading of taxes as Input Tax Credit will be available across goods and services at every stage of supply;
(iii) Harmonization of l
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tries. This will create India as a “Manufacturing hub”.
(B) Ease of Doing Business:
(i) Simpler tax regime with fewer exemptions;
(ii) Reduction in multiplicity of taxes that are at present governing our indirect tax system leading to simplification and uniformity;
(iii) Reduction in compliance costs – No multiple record keeping for a variety of taxes- so lesser investment of resources and manpower in maintaining records;
(iv) Simplified and automated procedures for various processes such as registration, returns, refunds, tax payments, etc;
(v) All interaction to be through the common GSTN portal- so less public interface between the taxpayer and the tax administration;
(vi) Will improve environment of compliance as all returns to be filed online, input credits to be verified online, encouraging more paper trail of transactions;
(vii) Common procedures for registration of taxpayers, refund of taxes, uniform formats of tax return, common tax base, common system of classificati
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eturn. Besides providing these services to the taxpayers, GSTN would be developing back-end IT modules for 28 States who have opted for the same. The migration of existing taxpayers has already started from November, 2016. The Revenue department of both Centre and States are pursuing the presently registered taxpayers to complete the necessary formalities on the IT system operated by GSTN for successful migration.
10. GSTN has selected 73 IT, ITeS and financial technology companies and 1 Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (CCT, Karnataka), to be called GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs).GSPs would develop applications to be used by taxpayers for interacting with the GSTN.
OTHER LEGISLATIVE REQUIREMENTS:
11. Four Laws namely CGST Act, UTGST Act, IGST Act and GST (Compensation to States) Act have been passed by the Parliament and since been notified on 12th April, 2017. All the other States (except J&K) and Union territories with legislature have passed their respective SGST Acts. The economi
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ates for filling up various forms, etc.
ROLE OF CBEC:
14. CBEC is playing an active role in the drafting of GST law and procedures, particularly the CGST and IGST law, which will be exclusive domain of the Centre. This apart, the CBEC has prepared itself for meeting the implementation challenges, which are quite formidable. The number of taxpayers has gone up significantly. The existing IT infrastructure of CBEC has been suitably scaled up to handle such large volumes of data. Based on the legal provisions and procedure for GST, the content of work-flow software such as ACES (Automated Central Excise & Service Tax) would require re-engineering. The name of IT project of CBEC under GST is 'SAKSHAM' involving a total project value of ₹ 2,256 crores.
15. It was also felt that the organizational structure and deployment of human resources needed a review for smooth and effective implementation of GST. A Working Group has after extensive deliberations and studies, submitted its Rep
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ade and industry who are the vital stakeholders in successful implementation of this reform.
18. CBEC would be responsible for administration of the CGST and IGST law. In addition, excise duty regime would continue to be administered by the CBEC for levy and collection of central excise duty on five specified petroleum products as well as on tobacco products. CBEC would also continue to handle the work relating to levy and collection of customs duties.
19. Director General of Safeguards, CBEC has been mandated to conduct detailed enquiry on anti-profiteering cases and should give his recommendation for consideration of the National Anti-profiteering Authority.
20. CBEC has been instrumental in handholding the implementation of GST. It had set up the Feedback and Action Room which monitored the GST implementation challenges faced by the taxpayer and act as an active interface between the taxpayer and the Government.
EXPERIENCE OF REGISTRATION & RETURN FILING:
21. Registration & Ret
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TR 1 returns filed for September, 2017
27,27,704
18
No. of GSTR 1 returns filed for October, 2017
7,80,849
19
No. of GSTR 1 returns filed for November, 2017
2,89,386
20
No. of GSTR 1 returns filed for December, 2017
5414
21
No. of GSTR 2 returns filed for July, 2017
56,11,071
22
No. of GSTR 4 return filed for quarter Jul-Sep, 2017
25,72,552
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS RELEASED BY CBEC:
22. To guide taxpayers in relation to GST matters, CBEC has issued a range of frequently asked questions on 12 sectors and other topics related to GST law, procedures, tax rates, specific industry or sector. The information is available on CBEC GST portal http://cbec-gst.gov.in under Services section as well as on www.cbec.gov.in.
WAY FORWARD:
23. Though, GST has already been implemented from the 1st of July 2017 a number of implementation issues related to IT systems, legal challenges, exports, return filing and reconciliations, passing on transition credit, anti-profiteering in GST e
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