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Press Reports on GST 03-05-2017

MP Assembly passes GST Bill-2017

Bhopal, May 3 (PTI) The Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly today unanimously passed the
Madhya Pradesh Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill-2017 as both treasury and Opposition benches
tried to grab credit for this new tax regime.

Ruling BJP and Opposition Congress, both adopted the Bill in House paving the way for roll out of
GST.

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was present in the House when Finance Minister Jayant
Malaiya moved the MP Goods and Service Bill, 2017 at the day-long special session today.

Earlier, both BJP and Congress tried to position GST as their own victory.

"The present version of GST Bill is the translation of the bill proposed by UPA government. It was
Manmohan Singh who opened up Indian economy that led to in economic reforms in the country,"
senior Congress MLA Mukesh Nayak said.

Another Congress member Mahendra Singh Kalukheda said that opposition of GST by the BJP during
the UPA regime in country resulted in a huge loss of about Rs 10 lakh crore every year.

"Now, ruling BJP is adopting all schemes of UPA government including GST, Aadhar, MNREGA,"
he added.

Leader of Opposition, Ajay Singh said that CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan opposed GST continuously
since 2006.

"MP Chief Minister opposed GST continuously since 2006 and even said that this (GST) would ruin
the country. Chouhan even said that he would move the supreme court on this," he added.

On the other hand, BJP's national general secretary and MLA, Kailash Vijayvargiya gave credit of the
GST approval in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"PM studied the reasons behind the poverty and found that taxation format was the biggest reason
behind this problem. So, he pitched for the GST to implement - one nation one tax formula," he
added.

He recalled that idea of GST germinated during the earlier NDA regime headed by Atal Bihari
Vajapayee.

Finance Minister Jayant Malaiya said that the GST taxation system was in place in 160 countries
across the world.

He said that GST will bring in transparency and unified taxation system.

"GST Bill is prepared after a hard work of 17-years. A help-centre would also be set up and our
officials are ready for the implementation. All the decisions in this regard would be taken by the GST
Council, which included representatives of 21 states," he added.

PTI News, 3 May, 2017

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GST: Government In No Rush To Set Up Anti-Profiteering Body, Says

CBEC Chairman

The government is not considering setting up an anti-profiteering body under the Goods and Services
Tax regime anytime soon and the GST Council will take a final call in the matter.

There is no timeline as to when this will be set up as the priority is to roll out GST (Goods and
Services Tax), Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Chairman Vanaja Sarna told
BloombergQuint in an interview. The GST Council will decide whether any such body will be set up
or this work will be assigned to an existing regulator like the Competition Commission of India, she
said.

The Central GST Law includes a provision to pass on the benefits of reduction in tax rates to
consumers once the new indirect tax regime is implemented, and is generally referred to as an anti-
profiteering measure.

In a separate interaction, another senior official of the CBEC, to be renamed CBIC (Central Board of
Indirect Taxes and Customs), told BloombergQuint that determining the fluctuations in the price of an
individual commodity will be difficult as it depends on several factors.

A fall in prices of raw materials could be because of other global factors and not necessarily GST, the
official said. It will then be difficult to conclude whether the prices fell because of the GST and if the
lower prices should be passed on to consumers. It will also increase litigation, making life difficult for
manufacturers, especially small and medium-scale industries, the official said.

The government is not considering setting up such an anti-profiteering body anytime soon, the official
said requesting anonymity. It is studying the gray areas in a similar regulator established by the
Malaysian government before implementing GST there, which he said turned out to be a failure.

Efforts On To Resolve Legacy Excise, Service Tax Cases

All legacy service tax and excise duty dispute cases pending before the rollout of GST will continue
to be dealt with provisions of the previous law, Sarna said. New GST commissionerates will have a
dedicated cell to handle all legacy work, she added.

Efforts are on to have minimum legacy cases, but those which are locked up in courts, we cannot do
much about it; otherwise those which are with the officers like appeals/refunds, efforts are on to
resolve them as soon as possible.

There will always be some spillover, which will be dealt with by these commissionerates, she added.

The CBEC chairman also told BloombergQuint that 77 percent of the central excise taxpayers have
already registered with the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), the IT backbone of GST, along
with about 57 percent service tax assessees. The government is also pressing for migration of existing
taxpayers to the new system, she said.

Bloomberg Quint, 2 May, 2017

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GST Network starts pilot testing of filing of returns

NEW DELHI: Gearing up for the roll-out of the countrys largest tax reform, the Goods and Services
Tax Network (GSTN) is carrying out a pilot test on return filing.
It will be a live test using 4,000 taxpayers and will be conducted over this fortnight, said a senior
official.

Once the goods and services tax (GST) is implemented from July 1, over 80 lakh assessees are
expected to log on to GSTN after a month to begin filing their monthly returns.

Every taxpayer would have three returns to be uploaded every month, including GSTR 1, GSTR 2 and
GSTR 3 relating to sales, purchases and the final tax paid, apart from one annual return.

While Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has promised ease in compliance and has assured that in
effect there would only be one return to be filed every month, concerns were raised whether the back
end IT infrastructure is strong enough to take the load.

The pilot test is expected to help look into these concerns as well as iron out any other wrinkles that
may arise.

The results of the pilot test are also expected to be shared with the GST Council in its next meeting
later this month.

Migration of assesses
Meanwhile, the official said while migration of assessees to the GST has been stopped as of now, it
will be restarted at a later date.

The data of all the enrolled assessees will now be migrated to the new GST system.

Despite the slow pace of enrolment of businesses, about 60 lakh or two-thirds of the assessees of State
value added tax (VAT) have been registered under GST. However, the enrolment of service tax and
Central excise duty assessees is lagging.

There is no reason to worry. Even if the enrolment window opens on June 30, taxpayers can easily
enrol for GST, said the official

The enrolment window was open between November 8 last year and April 30 this year.

Business Line, 3 May, 2017

MSMEs to get 'last chance' to join the GSTN: Navin Kumar

New Delhi, May 3 (KNN) The latest statistics reveal that out of 80 lakh registered assessees, there is
a big number of traders who have not registered for the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN).
Around 19 Lakh traders are yet to register themselves at the Good and Services Tax Portal.

The Government is considering giving the units one more chance before the expected date of
implementation of GST i.e. July 1st.

GSTN is the private body constituted to provide network support in the upcoming tax regime

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The GSTN earlier have extended its deadline tice. Navin Kumar, GSTN Chairman said to media that
a small window before July 1 will be provided with an aim to bring the remaining 20 lakh traders on
board.

He further spoke on the need to have a well-equipped mechanism driven on technology. To address
this he said that it is important for the traders community to be well informed about the system.

The Data indicates that the big businesses have successfully enrolled for the new tax regime, while the
MSMEs are the ones that lag behind. One of the reasons behind this could be the repeated demands of
the MSME bodies to the GST Council requesting the extension of the GST implementation date citing
complications in compliance as the reason.

Different MSME bodies including the Gujarat Traders Federation and the Indian Industries
Association have written to the GST council and the finance ministry voicing concerns regarding the
GST.

KNN India, 3 May, 2017

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