GST: A Trump card or a Stumbling Block

[Chetan Bhatt]

Since the Inception of the GST Regime in India, it has countered a meteoric amelioration. One of the most welcomed move by the Indian Diaspora with the exceptions out there. It was off Course a move that was tweaked to suit the needs of Indian diaspora.Within 62 years of its advent (First in 1954 in France), about 160 countries across the world have adopted GST because the tax has the capacity to raise revenue in the most transparent and neutral manner. However it was quite sad that it took us 62 years to adopt such a spectacular regime  that paved a way for the immense growth & competition globally. Some of the technical guru & pandits off Course had a contrary view on the same but with the moving time many have changed their perception towards. To sustain the cut throat market it is prominent to have a highly technical support in GST part rather than going by the closed eye procedural aspects. The debut of GST bought up the demand for experts in the field rather than the mere degree holders.

GST being a Destination based tax regime, will benefit the Destination state or in bare act terms we can say the state having place of supply. The four major issues in the earlier tax regime became the four pillar of the GST tax regime which were- Multiple taxes, multiple procedures, cascading effect & double taxation. However there are still few commodities which are under the former system but many of them are not permanent. Commodities which can be bought into the GST regime on the recommendation of GST council are – Petroleum crude, high speed diesel, motor spirit (Commonly known as petrol), natural gas and aviation turbine fuel. As per the revised article of the constitution of India Alcoholic liquor for human consumption is outside the ambit of GST. In nutshell we may say that there are negligible chances of dragging the commodity (alcoholic liquor) in the GST regime but for the above said 5 Petro product the chances are quite a bright

Inter-alia, there are various unique features of GST regime which were not adjacent earlier. However, which may be positive or negative either based on the individual’s lookout:

• Compensation clause, that derives that in case of loss of revenue to the states, the parliament shall provide the compensation to the states.
• Refund under GST regime is gradually in two cases, namely Inverted structure(say garments industry ) & exports
• For the purpose of application of Limits for registration or Composition scheme it may be said that aggregate turnover includes all taxable, exempted & zero rated supplies, which means a Nil rated, Exempted & Non-Taxable supply shall be taken into consideration while computing aggregate turnover. (The regime is totally revamped)
• Off course the incumbent govt. has tried to make valuation part easier by giving it a blanket coverage into 4 parts, which had a negative impact too.
• For the valuation purpose , Interest & penalty to be included
• Tax on stock transfer & availability of ITC on declared value in case of stock transfer (if eligible as to ITC)
• Powers for Taxing import of Goods , shifted to Customs Act 1962

Noticed so far a huge section of taxpayer claims that the threshold exemption is nothing more than a myth.