The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, in its meeting chaired by the Federal Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs, Arun Jaitley has approved both the drafts of the Central GST Bill and the Integrated GST Bill that were vetted by the Federal Law Ministry. India’s Federal Government presented the two Bills to the Parliament for their passage in the ongoing Budget Session.
Some of the main features of the two Bills, as finalized by the GST Council, are:
- A state-wise single registration for filing returns, paying taxes, and other compliance requirements. Most of the compliance requirements can be presented online, leaving very little room for physical interface between the taxpayer and the tax official.
- A taxpayer is required to file one single return state-wise to report all his supplies, whether made within or outside the state or exported out of the country and pay the applicable taxes on them, such as the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), State Goods and Services Tax (SGST), Union Territory Goods and Services Tax (UTGST) and Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST).
- A business entity with an annual turnover of up to Rs. 2,000,000 ($32,800) is not be required to register in the GST regime.
- A business entity with a turnover of up to Rs. 5,000,000 ($76,000) can opt for a composition plan under which it has to pay a much lower rate of tax and will be required to fulfill very minimal compliance requirements.
- Entities involved in agriculture are not required to register in the GST regime if their business is limited to the supply of produce out of cultivating land.
- An anti-profiteering provision has been incorporated to ensure that the reduction of tax incidence is passed on to the consumers.
You may access the complete notification released by the Press Information Bureau of India, here.
