New eases in GST rules

On Friday, the GST council met and discussed any changes that may be needed for the Goods and Services Tax (GST). Arun Jaitley, the Minister of Finance, gave an announcement in which he revealed a slew of changes to be made to the GST.

These changes will ease the implementation of the new tax, and they will also answer and heed the many complaints of taxpayers and small business owners.

Since the GST was intended to be a revolutionary simplification of the country’s indirect tax regime, these changes are intended to help this tax live up to that goal. Therefore, these are the four most significant changes that will help make life easier under the GST.

Eating out at restaurants may become cheaper, depending on the restaurant in question. Before, there were two tax rates on restaurants: 18% for alcohol-serving restaurants and AC restaurants, and 12% for other restaurants. Now, the 18% tax rate on AC restaurants will be brought down to 12%, therefore giving all restaurants the same tax.

Twenty-seven items will now be made cheaper. These items range from roti to stationery items to yarn, but all of them are having their tax percentage lowered. Some are going from 12% to 5%, some from 18% to 5%, some from 18% to 12%, and some from 28% to 18%.

Several measures are being taken to relieve small businesses and medium businesses. These benefits will apply to those who only make an annual turnover of ₹1.5 crores or less. These businesses will now only have to file quarterly returns instead of monthly returns. This policy starts on October 1st, and it will make it easier for these smaller businesses to claim a tax refund.

There will also be measures taken to relieve exporters. The GST council made the decision to continue with two pre-GST schemes, which will allow duty-free sourcing of export materials. These schemes will be continued until March 2018.

Additionally, the council decided to clear all tax refund claims by exporters. They also announced the government’s plan for kickstarting an e-wallet system for every exporter by April of 2018.

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