Major changes in GST rates on the cards, recommendations on GST rate rationalisation and slabs: GST News In A Minute

Major changes in GST rates on the cards as government officials met this week to finalise recommendations on GST rate rationalisation and slabs. Read on to know about updates under #GSTThisWeek

Overwhelming feedback over New GST Returns

The Central and State GST authorities organized a nationwide GST Stakeholder Feedback on 7th December 2019 to gain insights on New GST Returns. Feedback was acquired from 125 cities across the country where 7500+ trade associations/stakeholders participated in the programme. There has been an overwhelming response from GST stakeholders and several useful suggestions have been received. Hopefully, the form should be ready in time for its mandatory introduction in April 2020.

Government blocks e-Way Bill generation of non-filers of returns for 2 or more months

The Government has started disabling e-Way bill generation facility of taxpayers in case of non-filing of two or more consecutive GSTR 3B Return on GST portal. The Goods and Services Tax Identification Number (GSTIN) of such blocked taxpayers cannot be used to generate the e-Way Bills either as consignor or consignee.

States seek pruning of GST exemptions

States want substantial pruning of exemptions, particularly in services, under GST, with some states even backing a simpler three slab structure. List of exempted items that was supposed to be small has expanded substantially, particularly on the services side

GST rates could be reset

With revenue collections below expectations, GST rates and slabs could be raised to 6 or 8% and even 15%. Officers from Centre and States met earlier this week to finalise recommendations for rate rationalisation and slabs. Reports say they even considered various options, including raising rates from 5 to 8% and 12 to 15%, and fixing slabs at 10 and 20%. The GST rate on branded cereals, mobile phones, pizzas, air travel, air-conditioned rail travel, cruises, high-end hospital rooms, paintings, branded garments, and fine fabrics such as linen and silk may increase. Additionally, healthcare services might be brought under the GST net as it could give a leg up to the ongoing economic slowdown.

New decisions by GST council

• Input tax credit restricted to 10% instead of earlier 20% if invoices have not been uploaded by taxpayers.
• Taxpayers who haven't filed GSTR-1 from July 2017 will not be penalised provided they file by January 10, 2020. Additionally, the annual return date for filing GSTR-9c forms have been extended to January 31, 2020.

For more information on GST and GST Compliance, visit www.avalara.com

Avalara is an experienced application service provider (ASP) and partner of authorized GST Suvidha Providers (GSPs). To understand how our cloud-based application Avalara India GST can help you with GST compliance automation, contact us through https://www.avalara.com/in/products/gst-returns-filing