Since the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in India brought a spate of good news for small businesses and exporters on Friday.
After the 22nd GST Council meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “GST Council has considered the implementation experience of the last three months and gave relief to small traders… Compliance burden of medium and small taxpayers in GST has been reduced.”
Minister Arun Jaitley, reviewed the rate of tax under GST on 27 goods and services, mostly lowering the tax on these items of common use.
Good For Small Businesses And Exporters
The council focused on compliance burden of GST on the small businesses and exporters, make the reform smoother and simpler. The council responded favorably to the small businesses to lower the compliance burden by allowing them to file returns only once in a quarter instead of every month.
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Further, for exporters reeling under tight liquidity conditions due to tax refund claims aggregating to Rs 65,000 crore stuck with the government, the GST Council took steps to provide them relief by allowing pre-GST exemptions for them till March 2018.
Good News For Consumers As Well
Reducing tax burden for small businesses and exporters, in the end, it will give benefit to consumers itself, some list of items on which the government cut rates are
- GST rate cut from 12% to 5%: Unbranded ayurvedic medicine, on some food items like unbranded namkeen, sliced dried mango, khakra, job works such as zari printing items
- GST rate cut from 18% to 12%: Man-made yarn used in textile sector
- GST rate cut from 28% to 18%: Stationery items; marble and granite used for flooring, diesel engine and pump parts
- GST rate cut from 28% to 5%: E-waste
Council’s decision helps small, medium businesses: PM
The decision to reduce the compliance burden of small companies and traders came after two days when Prime Minister Narendra Modi address on GST where he said that he had asked the Council to identify bottlenecks faced. He tweeted after finance minister Arun Jaitley announced the changes at a press conference.
I congratulate FM @arunjaitley & his team for engaging with various stakeholders for extensive feedback which led to today’s recommendations
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 6, 2017
Good and Simple Tax (GST) becomes even simpler. Today’s recommendations will immensely help small and medium business.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) October 6, 2017
