5-star hotels will be charged 28%; AC restaurants and those with liquor licence will be taxed at 18%
Rollout of the national goods and services tax (GST) on July 1 seems almost certain but some states are not fully geared.West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra has sought postponement of the deadline, in a letter to Union finance minister, Arun Jaitley. He says small and medium enterprises are not prepared. Sources add that if this is so, it would prevent large enterprises from seeking input tax credit. Mitra cited data from the Confederation of All India Traders to say that 70 per cent of small businesses are yet to adopt the needed technology. H K Dua, president of the Federation of Associations of Cottage and Small Industries, said it would make more sense to give a couple of months after the rates are announced. "Right now, there is hardly any preparedness."Gujarat, credited with preparedness, claims 90.14 per cent of the 498,000 manufacturers, dealers and traders on the existing tax platform have migrated to GST. Senior officials said the state was completely ready for July 1. ..
The Odisha legislative assembly today passed the Odisha Goods & Services Tax (GST) Bill, 2017 and the Odisha Value Added Tax (VAT) Bill-2017, preparing the ground for transition to the new taxation regime.Both the Bills were unanimously passed in the assembly through voice vote. Though all political parties backed the GST Bill, the Opposition Congress questioned the haste in its passage. The Congress had moved a Cut Motion to refer the Bill to a select committee of the house, asking for more time to debate on its various provisions. The motion, was however rejected."This is a very important and sensitive Bill. It took 11 years for the Parliament to pass this Bill. The legislators have not gone through the Bill or understood it. More time should have been set aside to discuss and debate the Bill in detail. The Bill has 174 clauses that need careful attention. There is lack of clarity on whether Odisha stands to benefit or lose from the introduction of GST", said senior Congress ...
New tax regime to come to force on July 1
Crisil believes that industry stabilisation, under new tax regime, will take a couple of quarters
> The new Goods and Services Tax will make your travel cheaper but if be prepared for a bigger hole in pocket if you are a luxury traveler.True to its aim of making travel affordable the government did not increase the tax rate on the transport sector. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday announced that the rate of tax on the transport sector would be 5 percent. This is lower than the prevailing rate of tax rate of six percent while both passenger and sleeper class have been exempted from GST."Considering that transport is an essential part of the infrastructure, the GST council has decided to put rail, road and air travel in the lower bracket of five percent," finance minister Arun Jaitley told after the end of the two day GST Council meeting at SrinagarAnother reason for keeping the taxation rate on transport services in the lower bracket is because unlike other sectors the players in transport sector will not get input credit on taxes. "Since the transport sector's main input
With the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council unable to arrive at a consensus on Friday on the textiles sector, the rate announcement has been deferred to June 3. The deferment is understandably due to complexities within the entire textiles value chain, in addition to the industry's anticipation of a fibre neutral taxation across the chain.According to textile industry representatives, differed rates for different parts of the textile value chain with some being taxed and some being exempt has led to tax evasion and flourishing of the unorganised sector. In addition, India has been a cotton heavy region in terms of fibre as compared to the global trend of a skewed in favour of man-made fibre (MMF). Tax variation in textiles has been such that currently, while fabrics do not attract excise duty or sales in most states in India, branded apparels are subject to both excise duty and sales tax. On the fibre front, natural fibre like cotton is exempt from any tax in the country though ...
On services, standard rates at 18% input tax credit softens the impact on inflation in the future
Any rate beyond the existing 15% will further increase the burden on the industry says COAI DG
Healthcare and educational services are exempted from the purview of the GST
Air travel currently attracts tax rate of 6% and 9% for economy and non-economy travel respectively
The new rates of solar power are even below the average rate of coal-based power
Transport to be taxed at 5%; restaurants with turnover of Rs 50 lakh or below will face 5% tax
By the rates announced so far, it seems consumers can rest assured most items will become cheaper
While some near-term tax gains are partly factored in, bigger gains are more structural in nature
Little deviation from current effective tax rates, except in case of a few consumer products
The GST will be a national sales tax that will be levied on consumption of goods or use of services
CBEC has reorganised its existing central excise and service tax field formations
Fitment of contentious goods to be finalised this week
GST Council would do well to recognise the imperfections in the new tax regime