GST rollout smooth; officials maintaining constant watch: Govt

FinMin also said that construction cost of flats, housing complexes will come down under GST regime

The government on Friday said in Parliament that roll out of goods and services tax (GST), by and large, has been smooth and it has deployed a large number of senior officials to regularly review the working of the new indirect tax regime.

The finance ministry also expressed confidence that construction cost of flats and housing complexes will come down on account of a seamless flow of input tax credit in GST.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar said the government is regularly reviewing the impact of GST across the country.

In total, 209 officers of the rank of additional/joint secretary level officers in the central government have been appointed to monitor the impact of GST at a district level, the minister said.

The feedback received is reviewed by a Central Monitoring Committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary.

"The feedback received from these officers indicates by and large that the roll out of GST has been smooth," he said.

In another reply, Gangwar said [the] cost of construction of flats, houses and complexes is "expected" to come down on account of [a] seamless flow of input tax credits of goods and services.

"However, [the] price is a function of demand and supply and many other factors," he added.

He said construction of flats, complex and buildings will have a lower incidence of GST as compared to a plethora of central and state indirect taxes levied on them in the pre-GST regime.

Gangwar said the builders are expected to pass on the benefits of a lower tax burden to the buyers by way of reduction of prices/instalments.

The GST, which subsumes most of the indirect tax levies, was rolled out on July 1.