22nd GST Council Meeting: Has Diwali Really Arrived Earlier This Year?

Recently the 22nd GST Council Meeting has commenced and it has bought a lot of major update and reforms.

As PM Modi has quoted: 

Diwali has arrived 15 early this year for India.

Some items have gone cheaper and some not. While the taxpayers have a mixed feeling, the regular value urban consumer market has surely rejoiced.

Before hitting the direct results of this meaning let us see the underlying propositions to each update that is being made:

1. Turnover for composition scheme under GST raised from ₹75 Lakhs to 1 crore.

2. E-way bill provisions deferred till April 2018.

3. Reverse charge to be abolished till 31.03.2018.

4. Quarterly returns for taxpayers with annual turnover less than ₹1.5 crores. Tax to be paid on monthly basis.

While the reverse charges are abolished, customers have rejoiced as according to its removal the recipient of the goods and/or services is no more liable to pay GST but now the supplier is.

This won’t affect the top level manufactures, low-level key players have concerned themselves with the enforcement the added tax. So to celebrate that gap, the turnover rise would directly help the middle and small scale industries to thrive and prolong their market sustenance by fluidizing the tax payments.

So, now the back end decisions have been balanced and B2B chain has been strengthened. Based on the above foregrounds, the frontend decisions that the latest GST council has taken are:

1. Tax on clothing has been reduced to 5% from 12%.

2. 60 item tax has been reduced to 5% from 12%.

3. Tax on luxury fooding, restaurant and hospitality have been reduced to 12% from the previous 18% GST.

4. Tax returns are now to be filed once in the quarter not monthly basis.

However it is still debatable that how sweet this early Diwali would remain as the decisions though delightful for the end customer, are somewhat mixed for the backend retailers and market has to sustain both equally to function properly. Therefore, the post cursor of this GST meet is only yet to be discovered in the coming days.

Source: Zee News