During the meeting, Ficci, CII and Assocham flagged concerns about the petroleum and liquor industries, which they said would operate under a hybrid tax regime.
Advertisement
Bilkulonline.com, Mumbai, Aug 21: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said the country can have a lower tax regime only when the tax payer base increases and tax evasion comes down.
“And if we look at the world, leaving aside some countries like Dubai and Singapore, our tax rates are becoming more reasonable than that of most developed countries”.
According to him moderate tax rate and evasion can not coexist. “The economy of the country wouldn’t run without this”, the minister said in a response to demands made by some participants to bring the proposed GST rate at 17 per cent.
With the stage set for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll out from April 1 next year, the State Finance Ministers would be meeting the representatives of trade and industry on August 30 to sort the issues concerning registration of entities and intra-company services.
The GST will ensure that taxation rates are moderate, which in turn will bring down the cost of doing business, thereby bringing down the cost for end consumers. There are also some cases where some of these supposedly exported goods are then sold in the domestic market without GST, which gives the fraudsters an unfair advantage compared to other legitimate businesses which charge GST on the sale of their goods, it said.
He also said that a large section of the people, who file income tax return don’t actually pay the taxes.
Stating that GST implementation was his immediate challenge, the minister said the next challenge will be strengthening the banks.
The GST Constitutional Amendment Bill was passed by Parliament earlier this month and so far three states-Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand-have ratified the bill.
Advertisement
After the bill is ratified by the states, Parliament will have to pass two legislations-central GST and integrated GST-detailing the new tax code.
