Tax rates of 66 items were revised by the GST Council after receiving demands from various quarters of the country. This comes ahead of the roll-out of the one-country-one-tax regime on July 1.
The GST Council met for the 16th time on Sunday, June 11, 2017, and decided to reduce taxes on items like, agarbattis, computer printers and cashews among others.
In a relief to SMEs, the Council also increased the threshold of turnover for businesses which can opt for composition scheme to Rs 75 lakh, from Rs 50 lakh proposed earlier.
Here is a list of things that has been revised-
Giving reasons for lowering thetax rates, Jaitley said the objective was to maintain equivalence to the existing taxation level.
"In some cases, the fitment committee's recommendation went beyond the equivalence principle because some items, which have been historically charged at a higher rate, today in the changed economic concept the burden requires to be reduced. So, after considering the recommendations, the GST Council has reduced the tax levels in 66 out of 133 cases," he said.
West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra hailed today's Council decisions saying common people gained from this and termed increasing the turnover limit for availing composition scheme and reduction intax rates for cinema tickets as "people-centric measures".
On the issue of review of GST rate on hybrid cars, Jaitley hinted that the tax rate will not be reviewed, saying the industry demands were not in sync with a study conducted by tax officers.
The Council also approved the accounts and record rules for the GST regime and in the next meeting on June 18, it will take up taxes on lottery and e-way bill for discussion.
As regards composition scheme, Jaitley said the small and medium enterprises act as mass job creators and hence the industry demand was important.
The composition scheme provides for a easier method of calculating tax liability and allows GST registration for dealers with turnover below the compounding cut-off.
Asked if there would be any further revision of rates, the minister said the GST Council have gone deep into all the cases and whatever rates have been decided are based on "informed reasons" and "detailed discussions" and are broadly the final rates.