GST Council Meeting: Rate cut move towards 2-3 tax slabs structure, says industry

GST rate cuts for commonly used products across all tax slabs will provide a much-awaited relief and shows the GST Council's intention to move towards just 2-3 tax bracket structure, industry said Saturday.  "... Reduction in tax rates for commonly used products across all tax slabs shows the Council's intention to move towards just 2-3 slab rate structure. Procedural simplifications by the GST Council are significant and will ensure that rulings will be uniform across states, thus reducing litigation," CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said.

Banerjee said the Council has made welcome improvements for ease of doing business such as adoption of single cash ledger for each tax and single authority for disbursement of refund amount to be implemented on pilot basis. Traders' body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) also welcomed the reduction in GST tax rates on various items and said it is a progressive step in rationalising and simplifying the tax structure. 

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said that reduction in GST tax rates will on one side lower the cost of production of large number of items and on the other hand will make consumers more comfortable.

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Khandelwal said that lowering of tax rates on construction items will further lower the cost of construction.  "It would have been better if tax rates of cement is also reduced as cement constitute a major component of construction cost. Announcing the formation of a composition scheme for small service suppliers is a good policy decision as it will relive the small suppliers from the clutches of tax complications," he said.

Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd Managing Director and CEO and President Cement Manufacturers Association Mahendra Singhi said: "The Finance Minister's hint that a further rationalisation could be expected in the coming months should the state of the economy improve, collection of taxes improve, keeps us encouraged. 

"Recognising cement as a general public consumer product by the FM and reviewing it again in next meeting is keeping hopes live. A rationalised GST rate would definitely result into higher number of houses, more km of roads and better infrastructure at the same cost".  CAIT said traders keenly await the new return filing system which is to be implemented from April 1, 2019, and hope that return will be required to be filed once in three months.