The tax department has said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) can be implemented anytime in 2016, once the Bill is passed.

Speaking at the 3rd CII Global Tax Summit organised in Delhi on Thursday, V S Krishnan, Member, Service Tax, CBEC, Ministry of Finance clarified that missing the 1st April 2016 deadline does not mean going to 1st April 2017. GST can be implemented anytime during the year, once the Bill is passed.

"One Committee is already working on the GST rate structure and the Committee is expected to submit its report very shortly. In addition, the Empowered Committee is working with think tank NIPFP on the Revenue Neutral Rate, based on a fresh set of data. He assured the industry that the rate should not exceed 20 percent," he added.

Krishnan reiterated that drafting of the GST law has already been done and it would be given to the Empowered Committee for their inputs. Thereafter, it would be put in the public domain for comments. In addition, the draft Place of Supply rules will also be made public for comments.

"A lot of ground work needs to be done on GST by Industry Associations. Industry needs to identify challenges in the transitional provisions to the new GST legislation as well as suggest solutions to the problems," he said.

"We need to create a state level GST secretariat in which senior officials from centre and state should come together for interactions in institutionalised arrangements. A lot of hand holding is required for the successful implementation of GST," said Krishnan.

On the issue of delay in refund of service tax, Krishnan mentioned that this is being looked into and CBEC will come out with the developments very shortly.

Summing up, Krishnan stressed that there is undue revenue pessimism about GST. But on the contrary, he expects revenue to boom under GST.

source:- smetimes.in/smetimes