The GST Council Friday extended the tenure of the anti-profiteering authority by two years till November 2021 and allowed use of Aadhaar as proof for obtaining GST registration while referring tax cut on electric vehicles and their chargers to an officers’ committee.
The Council’s meeting, chaired by Finance Minister NirmalaSitharaman, also approved imposing a penalty of up to 10 per cent of theprofiteered amount on entities for not passing on benefits of GST rate cuts toconsumers, as against the current norm of levying a maximum fine of Rs 25,000.
Also, it extended the date for the filing of annual Goodsand Services Tax (GST) returns for 2017-18 fiscal by two months till August 30,2019. Also the date for barring non-filers of GST returns for two consecutivemonths from generating e-way bills for transporting goods has been extended bytwo months till August 21, 2019.
Briefing reporters after the 35th meeting of the Council,Revenue Secretary A B Pandey said the new GST return filing system would comeinto effect fully from January 1, 2020.
The Council also approved the rollout of an electronicinvoicing system on a pilot basis from January 1, 2020, made it mandatory forGST-registered multiplexes to issue e-tickets, and also decided to seekAttorney General opinion on the issue of GST rate on lotteries.
Pandey said the Centre has shared details relating to thegeneration of fake invoices with the states, and the Council has givenin-principle approval to launch a pilot project on e-invoices from January 1.
According to the proposal, entities with a turnover of morethan Rs 50 crore will be required to generate electronic invoices on agovernment portal for B2B sales.
He said it would be mandatory for multi-screen cinema hallsto issue e-tickets, which would ensure that the tax revenues accruing to Centreand states are deposited in the exchequer.
Explaining the rationale behind seeking AG opinion on taxinglotteries, Sitharaman said the principle of taxation under GST is that itshould be one rate across the country, whereas in case of lotteries there weretwo rates being charged. “Hence it was decided to obtain clarity on Article340”.
Currently, a state-organised lottery attracts 12 per centGST while a state-authorised lottery attracts 28 per cent tax.
An eight-member group of state finance ministers could notreach a consensus on whether a uniform tax rate should be imposed on lotteriesor the current differential tax rate system be continued.
To a query on whether there were discussions on further raterationalisation, Sitharaman said, “There wasn’t any specific thing onit…. We have very clearly emphasised and every state was on board thatsimplification is the route through which we should approach the whole thingand the objective should be towards simplification”.
Pandey said the proposal to reduce GST rate on electricvehicles to 5 per cent from the current 12 per cent and that on chargers fore-vehicles to 12 per cent from 18 per cent has been referred to the fitmentcommittee for fine-tuning.
Asked about revenue implication, Pandey said,”Currently there is no significant manufacturing of e-vehicles in Indiaand the government wants to encourage domestic manufacturing”.
The Finance Ministry in a tweet said that Sitharaman in heropening remarks to the Council meeting said that “GST Council has muchmore work to do including simplification of GST Rules, rationalisation of GSTrates & bringing more items in the ambit of GST among others”.The Council also passed a resolutionacknowledging the stellar role played by former Union Finance Minister andchairman of Council Arun Jaitley, expressing its gratitude and appreciation forthe exemplary contribution made by him in making the GST Council a shiningexample of co-operative federalism.