GOODS AND SERVICES TAX (GST)

02-04-2018

TO CHECK EVASION - E-way bill rolled out for inter-state goods transit.

New Delhi: Nationwide electronic or e-way bill system for inter-state movement of goods has been rolled out on Sunday, with GSTN officials saying that the platform is working smoothly. Karnataka is the only state which has implemented the e-way bill system for moving goods within the state. The state has been using the eway bill platform since September last year for intra-state movement of goods.

From Sunday, businesses and transporters have to produce e-way bill before a GST (Goods and Services Tax) inspector for moving goods worth over Rs 50,000 from one state to another.

Official at the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the company which has developed the IT backbone

for GST regime, said the e-way bill platform has been working smoothly and Karnataka is also generating e-way bill for intra-state movement read more »

10-03-2018

Exporters' GST refund piling up since July.

NEW DELHI: Since August, S C Ralhan, chief executive of Ludhiana-based Sri Tools Industries, is awaiting refund of the goods and services tax (GST) that his company paid on inputs that went into exports. The arrears now add up to over Rs 2 crore. “There is a system error as two ports are involved. As a result, we have not received any refund for exports that we made since July (when GST was launched),” Ralhan told TOI over the phone. The exporter explained that goods from Ludhiana are dispatched from an inland container depot, before being shipped from a port in Mumbai and the system does not allow his company to generate two export general manifest, documents needed to claim refunds.

Like Ralhan, there are thousands of exporters, large and small, who have not received refunds. Despite several complaints, the Central Board of read more »

09-03-2018

Covering GST Loss : Govt seeks Parl nod for Rs. 63K Cr.

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday sought Parliament’s approval for extra spending of Rs 85,315 crore, a large chunk of which will be used to compensate states for revenue losses due to rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) and phasing out of the central sales tax.
The government presented the fourth supplementary demand for grants in Parliament on Thursday and out of the total cash spending, it sought approval for Rs 62,716 crore to compensate states and Union territories due to revenue shortfall after GST rollout. This is a transfer from the compensation fund to the public account where GST cess on tobacco, soft drinks, luxury cars and coal is parked.

Although the money is paid for “revenue loss”, many states, which have higher collections than last year, will also receive compensation as the Centre had guaranteed 14% growth read more »

01-03-2018

First GST fraud: 2 directors of steel trading firms held for Rs. 7.2cr evasion.

Mumbai: In the first case of misuse of the goods and services tax (GST), two directors of two companies dealing in steel trading have been arrested for fraudulently availing input tax credit of Rs 7.2 crore. Officials said this has been done to inflate the turnover and thus defraud the exchequer and banks by opening Letter of Credit on fake purchase transactions.

There was no supply or receipt of goods but only invoices were moved, officials said. The arrested have been identified as Sanjiv Meha, director of Shah Brothers Ispat Pvt Ltd, Parel, and Vinaykumar Arya, director of VN Industries, Darukhana. Investigation showed that the said companies did not receive the goods for which they availed the input tax credit. Shah Brothers availed input credit of Rs 5.2 crore and inflated its turnover to Rs 600 crore. The second company claimed credit of Rs read more »

28-02-2018

GST kitty dips marginally in Jan as traders skip payments.

New Delhi: Goods and services tax (GST) collections dipped marginally in January to Rs 86,318 crore as traders continue to avoid payments due to loopholes, even as finance minister Arun Jaitley said a transition to a single rate may not be possible till compliance improves. A single rate of GST in India “can’t work at the moment” due to vast disparities in the society, he said at the India-Korea Summit, adding that the next stage of reforms will start once India becomes a significant tax-compliant society.

“After we are able to improve the compliance levels, the other stage of reform will begin. For example, we have two standard rates and in the long run I do see them merging into one. For that to happen, it will take some reasonable time — that is, when the compliance levels start moving up,” the FM said.

19-02-2018

IGST rules change again for export.

Last month, the Government amended Rules 89 and 96 of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Rules, 2017, through Notification No. 3/2018-GST, dated January 23, 2018. Many exporters are yet to fully comprehend the implications.

The amendment says those claiming refund of the Integrated Tax (IGST) paid on export of goods or services should not have received supplies on which the supplier has availed of the benefit of the Notifications Nos. (i) 48/2017-C.T., dated October 18, 2017 (refund of tax paid on deemed export) (ii) 40/2017-C.T. (Rate) or 41/2017-I.T. (Rate), both dated October 23, 2017 (supply to merchant exporter at 0.1 per cent tax) (iii) 79/2017-Cus., dated October 13, 2017 (generally, supplier has imported his inputs under advance authorisation or his capital goods under EPCG authorisation without payment of IGST and/or compensa­tion cess); (iv) 78/2017-Cus., dated read more »

14-02-2018

GST mop-up may hit Rs.1L cr a month, says finance min.

New Delhi: Revenues from the goods and services tax (GST) could cross Rs 1 lakh crore a month towards the end of next fiscal once anti-evasion measures like matching of tax data and e-way bill are put in place, finance ministry officials said on Tuesday.

Once the GST return-filing process stabilises completely, the Directorate General of Analytics and Risk Management (DGARM) will be put to action for 360-degree profiling and match the database of people filing GST with income tax returns filed, they said.

The government has budgeted about Rs 7.4 lakh crore from GST in the 2018-19 fiscal beginning April 1. The estimated collection for eight months (July-February) of the current fiscal is Rs 4.4 lakh crore. The March collection will take place in April, the start of new financial year, 2018-19.

Officials said the revenue estimates for read more »

12-02-2018

Perfunctory, retrogade changes in Customs - No rationalisation in rates of duty.

The Budget of 2018-19 had given ample opportunity to the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance to rationalise the customs duty structure because the other taxes namely Excise duty and Service Tax were not changed this time since they are a part of Goods and Services Tax (GST). The bureaucracy in the Department of Revenue had ample time before the Budget to devote their energy to bring about rationality in the structure of the Customs duty. But what they have done is simply to increase and decrease some duties on specific items. They did not even realise that the Customs duty structure is a completely irrational amalgamation of different rates with conditions, requirement of certification and huge list attached. At present there are nearly 19 rates in Customs duty like 150, 100, 85, 70, 65, 60, 50, 40, 35, 30, 25, 15, 10, 7.5, 5, 3, 2.5, read more »

09-02-2018

DeMon, GST had limited impact on growth: Jaitley

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that despite the noise about demonetisation hurting the economy, the growth rate expected to moderate from 7.1% in FY17 to 6.7% in the current financial year and the slowdown was partly due to destocking ahead of the GST launch in July.

“Demonetisation had its own disruptive impact. India’s growth rate was 7.1% last year. Was there a two percentage point decline next year?” the minister said in the Lok Sabha, while replying to the Budget discussion. He added that India is projected to regain the tag of being the fastest growing major economy next year.

Taking off from where PM Narendra Modi left on Wednesday, the FM said that the government had inherited a weak economy with high fiscal deficit and high inflation.

He said read more »

08-02-2018

GST-hit small biz get more time, money - Farm, Micro Cos In Priority Sector For Foreign Banks

Mumbai: The RBI’s policy has twin benefits for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) segment. The central bank has allowed lenders to give defaulters more time to repay and has at the same time removed limits on loans to this segment.

Also, foreign banks with a branch network of over 20 — which include the likes of StanChart, Citibank and HSBC — will have to lend to the farm and micro enterprises segment to meet their priority sector obligations.

The central bank said that this was aimed at encouraging small businesses transition into a formalised business environment and overcome the disruption caused by the goods and services tax (GST). The RBI has relaxed rules for GST-registered MSMEs which had not defaulted until August 2017, but who were overdue as on September 1, 2017. For these businesses, banks read more »