GST Council approves five sets of draft rules

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 30

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said five sets of draft rules relating to registration, payments, returns and refunds under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime were approved by the GST Council. He said the task of fixing GST rates, service tax assessments and compensation for the states remained yet unresolved and will be decided in the Council’s next meeting on October 18-20. 

“Rules for registration, payments, returns, refunds approved by Council,” Jaitley said, adding, “Rates would be the big item to be discussed in next meet. Discussion regarding service tax assessments and the states’ compensation will also continue in the next meet.” This was the second meeting of the Council. The first one was held on September 22. The first meeting had decided that the annual turnover limit for exemption will be Rs 20 lakh while it would be Rs 10 lakh in the North-Eastern and hill states. The GST Council also decided that the states will have jurisdiction over assessees with annual turnover of less than Rs 1.5 crore.

The Finance Minister said the government was working on a target date of April 1, 2017 for the rollout of the GST in the country. In his opening remarks at the fourth meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee meeting here, he said the government so far is following the road map for implementation of GST “as per the schedule”. He said till September 16, 2017, one year after the provisions of the Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016 being brought into force, the Constitution empowers the Central government to levy excise duty on manufacturing and service tax on the supply of services. 

The Finance Minister said, similarly the Constitution Amendment Act empowers the state governments to levy sales tax or Value Added Tax (VAT) on the sale of goods till that time. Some of the major suggestions included need for absolute clarity and transparency with regard to where taxes will be collected, assessed and where the appeal will be filed in case of GST regime. The members said it will be challenging task to tackle complex situation arising out of implementation of the GST law in a federal system. 

Some of the members suggested there was a need for launching a large-scale awareness campaign especially for the small traders as most of them are still unaware about the complex procedures and processes under the GST regime.