India doubles GST exemption limit for small businesses: Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will exempt small businesses with annual sales of up to 4 million rupees ($56,701) from paying taxes under a national sales tax, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, a move aimed at wooing a key voting group ahead of a national election.

Currently, firms with an annual turnover of up to 2 million rupees are exempted from registration under a unified national goods and service tax launched in 2017.

Arun Jaitley said the small companies would have the option to opt out of the GST tax net.

($1 = 70.5450 rupees)

(Reporting by Aftab Ahmed and Manoj Kumar; Editing by Krishna N. Das)