GST Council clears way to rollout GST bill

Last Thursday, the Goods and Service Tax Council gave the green signal for rolling out the new tax (Goods and Service Tax) regime from July, clearing all regulations and legislations required for one of the most aspiring and ambitious tax reform measures since Independence.

The GST council, which met in New Delhi, approved the union territory GST (UTGST) and the state GST (SGST) bills. Now the Goods and Service Tax bills will have to be cleared by state assemblies and by the Parliament as well.

Some minor adjustments are still pending

The GST Council has given its approval on the rules and regulations on GST registration, invoice, returns, payments, and refunds, but all these may need some minor adjustments and corrections. The GST council will again meet on 31st March to approve the regulations on input tax credit, valuation, composition, and transitions. Once the GST council approves the rules and regulations, the most vital issue of the assignment of the tax slabs to numerous services and commodities would be up for approval.

GST a top priority reform, says government

Goods and Service Tax has been recognised as a top priority reform by the current BJP government and the implementation of the same, although the government had missed several deadlines, is anticipated to support to raise India’s economic appeal for overseas investors while shaping up the disordered and messy indirect tax structure.

Goods and Service Tax has been worked on for more than a decade, but a consensus had eluded the governments of the states and the central government until now. This new tax regime will complement and harmonise 11 state and central taxes and duties into a single national sales tax.

The GST will include central and state levies such as additional duties of customs, excise duty, value added tax, service tax, octroi, luxury tax and entry tax.

Getting GST-ready before July 1

More will become clear after the GST council’s meeting this March end, but as a business now is the time to take the first steps to becoming GST-ready. This way, when the change comes, you will not be caught off guard! So, what can you do to be prepared for GST? Glad you asked:

• Get your enrollment done on time. To read more about the enrollment process and its relevance.

• Plan your logistics and warehousing requirement carefully. To read our detailed guide on impact analysis on logistics and warehousing.

• Adopt such platforms, technologies which will enable your business to be GST-compliant. Click here to get all updates and access a pool of GST Calculators.

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