Moving swiftly on the road to formalising the biggest reform of the indirect tax regime, the Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) Council on November 3, 2016, has decided four-tier GST tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28%, with zero rate for essential items and the highest for luxury and de-merits goods that would also attract an additional cess.
Goods and Services Tax (GST) is a destination based consumption tax levied at multiple stages of production and distribution of goods and services, with taxes on inputs credited against taxes on output. GST is going to be big game changer and under proposed GST regime
Government is not leaving any stone unturned to roll out the much awaited indirect tax reform from April 1, 2017. In less than a week after the first meeting of GST Council (on September 22-23, 2016), CBEC on September 26, 2016, has unveiled Draft Rules and formats under GST relating to registration, invoice and payment.
Now, with September 12, 2016, being notified as the appointed date for Section 12 of the Constitutional Amendment Act, GST Council shall be constituted within 60 days from September 12, 2016.
The Government’s plan to roll out Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) from April 1, 2017, has moved an inched closer to the reality with the Hon’ble President Shri. Pranab Mukherjee signing the Government’s flagship Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, 2014 on GST (GST Bill), just a while ago.
Owing to the federal structure of India, where there are two taxing authorities – the Central Government and the State Government(s), the Country has witnessed overlapping of powers of the State Government(s) and the Central Government.
As Goods and Services Tax (GST) is going to be levied on supply of goods and/or services, meaning of ‘goods’ and ‘services’ would also play vital role in levy and chargeability of GST after the key term ‘supply’. It has to be clearly identified as to whether the supply constitutes supply of goods or services for leviability of GST.
Determination of the taxable event in any tax law is of utmost significance as the levy of tax is based on occurrence of that event. Before we proceed further to understand and analyse the taxable event under the GST regime, it is imperative to first understand the taxable events under the present indirect taxation:
With the passage of the 122nd Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha on August 3, 2016 with certain key amendments, which includes dropping of 1% additional tax on inter-state supply of goods, full (100%) compensation to States for any revenue loss for a period of 5 years, etc., followed by their adoption in Lok Sabha on August 8, 2016, the Government of India is racing hard to get GST implemented by April, 2017.
With a strong pitch for one nation one tax, the Hon’ble Finance Minister, Shri. Arun Jaitley presented, today, in the Lok Sabha, the Constitution (122ndAmendment) Bill, 2014 on GST , which was passed by the Rajya Sabha on August 3, 2016 with certain key amendments, that enables the GST in the country.
