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Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, IAS, Secretary, Dept of Revenue, GOI, chaired an Outreach Programme held by Commercial Taxes Department at Sri Puttannachetty Town Hall, Bengaluru on May 30.
A large number of Industry bodies including PIA took part in the interaction on issues related to GST and its rollout and also submitted Representations to Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, for consideration in the GSTN.
PIA President Sri R. Krishnamurthy later informed that the intervention by PIA and other Industry bodies had yielded positive results in the form of Tax on Agarbathies being reduced. “PIA launched a sustained campaign on GST for the benefit of our Members and I am happy that most of us are prepared for the rollout from July 1,” he observed and added that “PIA will continue its efforts to support and mentor the Members during the transition period even after the rollout and help them to tide over the transition bottlenecks.”
Dr. Hasmukh Adhia, IAS, Secretary (Revenue), Ministry of Finance who is looking after GST matters in GOI held extensive discussions with Finance Department, GOK and Commercial Tax Department.
Addressing the large gathering, Dr. Hasmukh Adhia confirmed that there will be no compromise or extension of the July 1 deadline for introducing GST.
Most of the work required for implementation of GST from July 1 has been completed, he informed and that once GST was rolled out, trade and industry will have a much lower compliance burden compared with the current regime in which they have to file different returns with different authorities for different taxes.
A gist of the observations made by Dr. Hasmukh Adhia is given below:
* Once GST is on, there will be scope for rationalisation of tax rates fixed on various goods and services. At present only 19 items are under 28 per cent bracket and about 44 items under 18 per cent bracket.
* Works contracts coming under input tax credit, homes are set to get cheaper. There is a provision in the GST law that, by chance, if taxes paid on the inputs are more than the tax rate of the output liability, refunds will also be given except in certain items such as work contracts.
* The total incidences of taxation on a product or service are to come down for most items. This will happen because of the removal of cascading of taxation, and availability of seamless flow of credit across the value chain. If goods are produced in which services are used, the input tax credit of taxes paid on services will be available and vice versa.
* On fears over deposits or loans getting charged due to implementation of GST, he clarified that all people in financial services will know, we are not charging service taxes on deposits as well as loans, but taxes on other services. Loans are not going to become costlier. That is a misplaced fear, because of lack of understanding.
Sri Krishna Byre Gowda, Hon’ble Minister for Agriculture, GOK who is Karnataka’s representative in the GST Council, said the GST would overall reduce the tax rates in the country.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
