GST
COUNCIL AGREES ON 5 AREAS; DIFFER OVER 1ST MEET DECISION
In signs of fracture, the Centre and states
on disagreed on decisions reached at the first meeting of the GST Council on
service tax assessment although they reached a consensus on area based
exemption in the new tax regime.
The second meeting of the all-powerful GST Council, headed by
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, agreed on five subordinate legislations dealing
with issues ranging from registration to invoicing under the new Goods and
Service Tax (GST) regime.
It also agreed on the treatment of exemption from GST. Currently,
the Centre gives exemption to 11 states mostly in North East and hilly regions
from excise duty as also many states give the same as incentive for setting up
industry.
The council decided that under GST, which will subsume excise duty
and VAT among other levies, taxes will have to be collected and it can be
reimbursed from the annual budgets to the exempted categories.
But there were divisions over ratifying or approving the minutes
of the first meeting of the Council, held last week, after at least two states
disagreed with what was documented as decided on the Centre’s assessing 11 lakh
service tax filers in the new dispensation.
“Obviously the first item has to be approval of minutes of the
last meeting. With regard to one item recorded in the minutes with regard to
the service tax assessments in the new dispensation, there was a long
discussion on the interpretation on the decision taken in the last meeting and
that discussion consumed a lot of time on Friday.
“That discussion was inconclusive and, therefore, it will continue
in the next meeting on 18th (October),” Jaitley told reporters.
Non-ratification of even one item on the minutes means the whole
minutes are not agreed. Initially, it was thought that the minutes should be
put to vote as those objecting to them were far less than those agreeing but
Jaitley wanted to take decisions with consensus and so it was postponed.
Uttar Pradesh’s Minister for Vocational Education and Skill
Development Abhishek Mishra said the minutes were not approved in entirety.
The second meeting of the GST Council finalised rules for
registration, rules for payments, returns, refunds and invoices.
With this as many as 6 issues have been settled by the
Council, that has representatives of all the states, in two meetings in a span
of one week. Discussions on service tax assessment and the formula
forcalculating compensation to be paid to states in case of revenue shortfall
as a result of implementation of the GST regime, possibly from April 1, 2017,
would be taken up at the next meeting on October 18-20.
It will also decide on the all important GST rate, Jaitley said,
adding that the Government is targeting November 22 for completing major work
on deciding tax rate, exemptions and draft legislation by the Council.
There were two items regarding draft GST rules on agenda of
Friday’s GST Council meeting, he said.
“Now these rules are with regard to registration, rules for
payments, return, refund and invoices. These rules are notified once the Act is
passed... These 5 sets of rules were taken up for consideration and have been
approved. So we are in a state of readiness with the subordinate legislation
once the act itself is approved,” he said.
The rules approved will form part of the supporting legislations
needed to rollout GST. “So once the act is passed by Parliament or by the state
legislatures as the case may be, we want the draft rules to be ready so that
the rules can be notified immediately,” he said.
Stating that the second item on agenda was treatment of existing tax
incentives by the Centre, he said, has given some exemptions from excise duty
to 11 North-East and hill states.
Similarly, states too give out a series of incentives.
“It is possible that some of the exemptions may get phased out.
But for the exemptions which may remain how will these exemptions fit into the
GST system. So the Council took up for discussion the management of these
exemptions. And it was agreed that there would be a levy of tax under the GST
system on all exempted entities.
“Once the tax is levied, the Central Govt or State Government,
which gets that tax, would then reimburse from the budget, that quantum of tax
back to exempted entity,” he said.
Under the GST system, everybody will have to pay tax but those
exempted would be entitled to be reimbursed the levy they pay.
On the issue of service tax assessment, he said the Central
Government’s understanding is that an arrangement as been finalised for continuing
with the existing system and transferring it to states when their officers are
trained.
On services that are taxed partly by the Centre and partly by
states, he said experts will examine and report it in next meeting for a final
decision.
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