Tax Experts react to 17th GST Council announcements on June 18

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During its 17th meeting yesterday, GST Council affirmed that GST shall be a reality from July 1, thus leaving no scope of any further deferment.
Return filing procedure for first two months (i.e. August & September) has been relaxed by providing that a single-page summary return in Form GSTR-3Bcan be filed by the 20th of following month and pushing date for filing invoice wise details in GSTR 1 to September. While the Council has approved draft rules relating to advance rulings, appeals and revision, assessment, anti-profiteering and fund settlement, further deliberations will be done to reach consensus on e-waybill rules. Some relaxation has also been provided in tax rates for hotels.
While the Council will meet again on June 30 to take stock before the implementation of GST. Meanwhile, Tax Experts react to the announcements made yesterday. 
 


Comments


P V Srinivasan
Corporate Advisor

The affirmation by the GST Council that the rollout of GST will be from July 1, 2017 is most welcome and it is a relief. Downstream businesses have been planning inventory reduction to minimize the transitional impact and the deferment of the implementation date was not actually in the interest of the trade. The two months’ leeway for filing of return in GSTR-1 is welcome. Nevertheless, the common portal should be activated well before so that suppliers who are ready may proceed to file GSTR-1 itself instead of a summarized return in GSTR-3B. Even if the preparedness is short, trade and business will gain the experience of identifying the errors and carry-out system corrections. Now we move on to live implementation of GST. This will be an exciting phase of satisfaction and frustration in equal measure. Once the teething troubles are sorted out, GST will be the most modern indirect tax system in the world. A proud moment.