GST rates on 29 goods, 53 services cut 

GST rates on 29 goods, 53 services cut 

Context

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has reduced the rates on 29 goods and 53 categories of services, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said following the Council’s meeting on Thursday.

GST Council also mulls approaches to ease the burden of filing returns in order to boost compliance

Against the backdrop of declining GST collections and waning compliance, the Council also discussed in detail various approaches to ease the return filing compliance burden, and the need for the implementation of anti-evasion measures.

Services

Some of the services for which the rates have been cut include:

• Tailoring (18% to 5%)
• Admission to theme parks (28% to 18%)
• And petroleum and natural gas mining and exploration (18% to 12%)

Goods

The goods on which the rates have been reduced include:

• Biodiesel buses used for public transport (28% to 18%)
• Sugar boiled confectionery
• Biodiesel
• Drinking water packed in 20 litre containers (all from 18% to 12%)
• And LPG supplied to domestic consumers by private distributors (18% to 5%)

In effect

The new rates would come into effect on January 25.

More cuts to come

“One would expect that over the next few months, this process would continue, particularly with respect to 28% category, which should only be for select luxury and demerit products

Anti-evasion measures

There is a need to build in anti-evasion measures

• The e-waybill system [to be rolled out on February 1] will be one of these.

As these anti-evasion measures are implemented, the revenues should start picking up again.