Assocham for up to 20% GST rate

For incuding services of mass consumption

Business chamber Assocham on Sunday pitched for up to 20 per cent standard GST rates.

It also batted for including services of mass consumption in the ‘merit’ list to ensure that prices of critical services like telecom, banking, healthcare and railways do not lead to inflation.

Demerit goods or sin goods may draw higher tax than standard ones.

“An interaction with a large number of Assocham constituents felt that the focus should be to get the maximum tax buoyancy through more and more trade and industry channels in the small scale and unorganised sectors joining the mainstream value chain, rather than keeping the standard GST rate high,” Assocham said in a press statement.

Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian recently said that his report has observed that at 18-20 per cent GST rate, inflation will be zero.