New Delhi: Goods and services tax (GST) Council on Friday decided that businesses earning upto Rs 20 lakh in a year will be exempt from the new tax as both Centre and States are trying to thrash out issues to meet the deadline of 1st April to roll out GST in the country.
For North-eastern and the hill states this limit will be at Rs 10 lakh. These decisions where taken during the two day meeting of the GST council which ended on Friday. The meeting also decided that all cesses will be subsumed in the GST.
GST Council which is headed by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and has representatives from all the states decided that states will have exclusive control over dealers having revenue under Rs 1.5 crore in a year.
Those with turnover of over Rs 1.5 crore would be cross examined either by officers from the Centre or state to avoid dual control. The issue of “dual control” had been one concern on GST.
However, the power for assessment of 11 lakh service tax assessees who are currently assessed by Centre, would remain with it. New assessees which would be added to the list would be divided between the Centre and states.
The crucial issue of GST rate and tax slabs would be decided at its three-day meeting beginning October 17. Broad principles for compensating states for any loss of revenue due to GST roll out were also discussed.
The next meeting on September 30 will finalise the draft rules regarding implementation of exemptions. The exemption list has also been cut down to 90 items from the current 300 goods and services.
“All decisions have been taken without a vote,” said Mr Jaitley. The general consensus at the meeting, he said, was that the compensation to be paid to states for any loss of revenue because of implementation of the new regime, should be at regular intervals.
