July2nd
2nd Day after roll-out of GST passed without any major problems;
Dhabas and big Restaurants as well as from Kirana shops to Departmental Stores have started getting acclimatized to the new tax system;
Since 25th June, 2017, 2.23 lakh new dealers have entered the GSTN system by filing draft applications of which 63,000 have also submitted full details, of which 32,000 dealers granted fresh registrations also.
GSTN unveils excel template for to help taxpayers perform easy data entry offline before uploading on the GST portal; Excel template together with an offline tool will make uploading large numbers of invoices much easier and quick; Offline Tool to be unveiled on July 17, 2017.
July 3rd
With The Roll-Out of GST, Check Posts Get Abolished Across 22 States in India
July 7th
Central Government: There is no change made in any subject relating to education in the GST era, except to reduce tax rate on certain items of education such as school bags etc.; Denies the reports that education will become expensive under GST; Rather services provided by an educational institution to students, faculty and staff are exempt.
July 8th
The State of Jammu and Kashmir joins GST today making the GST truly a “ one nation, one tax” regime.
The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) takes certain initiatives for Ease of Doing Business under the GST regime; Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley launches a Mobile App “GST Rates Finder” to help users to find rates of GST for various goods and services.
July 17th –Monsoon session- PM’s words
This Monsoon Session will bring in a new spirit after the successful implementation of GST. Whenever the Political Parties and the Government take decisions keeping in mind the national interest, it shows their commitment towards the larger public good. It has been proved successfully with the implementation of GST. The GST spirit is about growing stronger together.
Consumers across India have unanimously hailed GST: Dr Jitendra Singh
July 18th
GST : to migrate from a complicated and multi tax system to a simpler tax system. This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State for Finance in written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha today.
FM: Organized traders and unorganized sellers in Textile Sector have not been affected by the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
July 21st
Number of Registration of GSTN crosses 77.5 lakhs. This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State for Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
July 25th
Impact of GST on Civil Aviation Sector:Under the GST regime the applicable tax rate on economy class passenger tickets has been reduced from 6% to 5% (non-creditable for goods), while the tax rate on business class has been increased from 9% to 12% with input tax creditable for both goods and services procured by airlines. Petroleum products including ATF are presently outside the purview of GST.This information was given by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.
July 26th
Benefits of GST for the Transport Sector: The transport sector stands to benefit from the recently rolled out GST in several ways. Pre- GST, the complex tax structure and paper work forced the transport industry to spend a lot of resources on tax compliance and deposit of interstate sales tax. Monitoring and collection of sales tax at interstate check posts led to major traffic congestion at these points, resulting in slower movement of freight and passenger, and consequently higher costs and pollution. An average Indian truck covers only about 50,000-60,000 km a year as against 3 lakh km done by a truck in US.
Pre- GST, the statutory tax rate for most goods worked out to about 26.5%. Post GST most goods are expected to be in the 18 % tax range . India currently has very high logistics cost – about 14% of the total value of goods as against 6-8% in other major countries. GST will serve to bring down the logistics cost to about 10-12 % by facilitating efficient inter-state flow of goods and accelerating the demand for logistics services.
According to Shri Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road Transport & Highways and Shipping, India’s logistics sector would gain the most from the Goods and Services tax as costs would fall by almost 20%.
July 28th
BRICS countries’ Heads of Revenue Meeting hails GST Reforms being introduced in India; Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) in respect of tax matters identifying areas of cooperation signed by the BRICS Heads of Revenue at the Meeting held at Hangzhou,China .
August 01st
After introduction of GST, all India weighted average MRP of Urea has decreased by 71 paise per bag: Shri Mansukh L. Mandaviya
Minister of State for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Chemicals & Fertilizers, Shri Mansukh L. Mandaviya, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today, informed that the all India weighted average MRP of Urea has decreased by 71 paise per bag. Therefore, the farmers have directly benefitted from GST. Further, there is adequate availability of all subsidized chemical fertilizers across the country and there is no report of any shortage, the Minister added.
Prior to the implementation of GST, the farmers of different States were paying different taxes (Excise Duty and VAT) ranging between 1% to 7%. With the introduction of uniform GST at 5%, the farmers of different States are liable to pay uniform tax amount. The prices of P&K fertilizers have decreased in majority of States after implementation of GST, he added.
Impact of GST on Airfares : Under the GST regime the applicable tax rate on passenger tickets for economy class has been reduced from 6% to 5% (non-creditable for goods). The tax rate for business and first class has been increased from 9% to 12% (with input tax creditable for both goods and services procured by airlines). With regard to the UDAN Scheme, the applicable tax would also be 5% (non-creditable for goods) on the value of the passenger ticket excluding the subsidies provided by the Central Government and the State Governments. Moreover, since the maximum airfare or cap prescribed for the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) seats is inclusive of the applicable GST and the same is reimbursable to the airline operator(s) concerned at actuals from the Regional Connectivity Fund, there would be no impact on fares charged from passengers booked on RCS seats.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Civil Aviation Shri Jayant Sinha
August 3rd
Post GST reduction of incidence of Tax on Coal Consumers: In pre GST regime there was Excise Duty on Coal @ 6% , Stowing Excise Duty @ Rs. 10 per tonne of coal production, VAT@ 5% (on intra-state sale), Central Sales Tax @ 2% (on inter-state sale, on submission of Form C) . Post implementation of GST all the above mentioned taxes and levies have been subsumed and GST @ 5% is being charged to consumers. This was stated by Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy and Mines. The Minister further stated that Clean Environment Cess @ Rs 400 per tonne was payable prior to GST which has been repealed and a new levy namely GST Compensation Cess has been introduced @ 400 per tonne of coal. However, previously VAT/CST was charged on Clean Environment Cess but no such taxes are levied on GST Compensation Cess.
August 25th
Guidance for taxpayers in relation to GST : To guide taxpayers in relation to GST matters, CBEC has issued a range of frequently asked questions related to GST law, procedures, tax rates, specific industry or sector. The information is available on CBEC GST portal http://cbec-gst.gov.in under Services section. Taxpayers can search for information using key words or a topic like Textiles, Restaurants, Composition levy scheme, Registration procedure, Return filing, Job work, input tax credit etc. For any further information taxpayers may reach out to CBEC twitter handle, or help at cbecmitra.helpdesk@icegate.gov.in or 1800-1200-232. Taxpayers may also look for latest information on GST at CBEC portals cbec.gov.in and cbec-gst.gov.in.
August 29th
GST Revenue Figures – July 2017 : The Goods and Services Tax (GST) tax was introduced on 1st of July, 2017. The last date for payment of GST for the month of July 2017 was 25th August, 2017. The last date for filing returns in cases, where the taxpayer wanted to avail transitional credit was 28th August, 2017 and, in all other cases, it was 25th August, 2017. If we exclude the taxpayers who have registered with the GSTN in August 2017 and the composition dealers, total number of tax payers who were required to file the returns for July 2017 is 59.57 lakhs, of which, as on 29th August, 2017 (10 a.m.), 38.38 lakh returns have been filed, which is 64.42% of the total number of returns, which are to be filed for the month of July 2017. The total revenue of GST paid under different heads upto 29th August, 2017 (10 a.m) is Rs.92,283 crore. The total CGST revenue is Rs.14,894 crore, SGST revenue is Rs.22,722 crore, IGST revenue is Rs.47,469 crore (of which IGST from imports is Rs.20,964 crore) and Cess is Rs.7,198 crore (of which Rs.599 crore is Compensation Cess from imports).
It may be mentioned that IGST will be allocated between the CGST and the SGST to the extent that the same is used for payment of CGST/SGST. This exercise will be done based on the cross-utilisation report to be received from the GSTN. Exact revenue figures of the Central and the State Governments respectively will be known after this exercise is complete before the end of this month.
Out of total 72.33 lakh taxpayers, 58.53 lakh taxpayers have completely migrated to the GSTN and 13.80 lakh taxpayers are yet to complete their procedural formalities to migrate to the GSTN. The number of new taxpayers who have registered with the GSTN upto 29th August, 2017 (10 a.m.) is 18.83 lakhs.