Recent announcements on GST – 25th Council Meeting and more
25th Meeting of the GST Council was held on 18th January, 2018, where the respected Finance Minister has announced changes in current GST regime heading to ease of doing business. The Council failed to discuss about GST on Real Estate, however, numerous items were brought under lower tax bracket.
Reduction in burden of compliance:
Taxpayers are yet to get in ease with the compliance system of GST. Late filing fees were burden on every taxpayer. The council has recommended revision of late fees applicable on failure of GST online return filing.
Late filing fees are revised in following ways:
- For forms supply details in Form GSTR – 1, Form GSTR – 5 and GSTR – 5A, is reduced to Rs 50 per day of delay;
- For taxpayers filing NIL Returns, late fees will be levied at Rs 20 per day of delay for abovementioned forms;
- Input Service Distributor will be required pay Rs 50 per day of delay on failure of filing the form GST Return – 6.
E-Way Bill:
E-Way Bill for transportation of Goods will be implemented from 01.02.2018 on pan India basis. With effect from 1st of Feb, modifications of rules with respect to e-Way Bill are to be implemented for inter-State movement of Goods. Modifications with respect to intra-State movement of goods will be implemented by each State on date to be announced by them separately but not later than 01.06.2018. Facility of generation, modification and cancellation of e-Way Bill is implemented on a trial basis since 16th of January, 2018 and later the online filing of e-Way Bill will be done from portal at www.ewaybillgst.gov.in.
Read about e-Way Bill in our other blog: E-Way Bill implemented w.e.f 01.02 for Transportation of Goods.
Cancellation of GST Registration:
Earlier registrants, registered on voluntary basis under GST Law were not allowed to make an application for cancellation of GST Registration before a period of 1 year from the date of registration. However, council has accepted the recommendation in the meeting to permit them to apply for cancellation of GST Registration.
Further, announcement was made for extension of the application for cancellation of the registration by the taxpayers, who obtained registration under GST due to migration from earlier tax system of VAT to GST.
The committee formed under GST has recommended certain changes with furnishing the report to the council. The GST council has accepted the reports and recommendations with respect to Handicrafts.
Slash in rates of Goods and Services:
The council has revised rates of 82 items including 29 goods and 53 services. The considerable revision of the taxes is second biggest tax rationalisation of tax rates after implementation of GST in India.
Old and used motor vehicles under chapter 87 were brought from 28% to 18% and 12% tax bracket by further specification. Further, nearly 19 goods were brought under bracket of 12% from earlier 18%.
Massive reduction of 13% tax was brought in force for following products, which will now levied under tax bracket of 5%;
- Tamarind Kernel Powder
- Mehendi paste in cones
- LPG supplied for supply to household domestic consumers by private LPG distributors
- Scientific and technical instruments, apparatus, equipment, accessories, parts, components, spares, tools, mock ups and modules, raw material and consumables required for launch vehicles and satellites and payloads
Increase of tax rate on certain products is also made effective including following:
- Tax rate for Cigarette filter rods is increased from 12% to 18%.
- Further Rice bran (other than de-oiled rice bran) was under NIL rates earlier, which was increased to 5%.
Get the comprehensive list here.
The agenda of the meeting included discussion with respect to cut on GST rate and its rationalisation being followed by inclusion of Real Estate under span of GST subsuming the Stamp Duty and registration fees and to simplification of compliance by considering present GST Return filing requirements.
Other Recent Announcements:
Self Help Portal is to be launched by the GST Network on 22nd January, 2018 to enable the stakeholders to resolve the issues and problems through single window at https://selfservice.gstsystem.in/. The stakeholders will be allowed to raise the issue through tickets, which can further be tracked and logged in a systematic manner.
Currently stakeholders can reach to GSTN through e-mail to seek resolution of their problems (helpdesk@gst.gov.in). However, mechanism to solve queries through e-mail will be discontinued on deployment of Self Help Portal w.e.f. 22nd of January, 2018.
The mechanism of resolving issues through ticket raising will help the Governmental Authority to better analyse the issues faced by the taxpayers or the stakeholders. The person raising tickets or complaints will be able to check the resolution even after its closure.
The Government is proactively taking steps to make the Online GST return filing more compatible and user friendly for stakeholders as well as taxpayers. Suggestions and improvements are welcomed by the Government from different stakeholders and same are taken under consideration by the council on board under council meetings and other sources.
CS Prachi Prajapati
Company Secretary with a forte in content writing! Started as a trainee, she is now leading as a Content Writer and a Product Developer on technical hand of LegalWiz.in. The author finds her prospect to carve out a valuable position in Legal and Secretarial field.
I am not agreed with your point that real-estate buildings are kept away from the umbrella of GST. The central government has already reduced GST tax on under construction building from 12 to 8 percent.
Yes, we agree for the reduction of tax for real-estate. Kindly note that the article refers to discussion of the meeting as on the date of publishing. However, the rates were slashed afterwards as mentioned by you.