The seminar was organized by the Utkal Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UCCI) along with the Chief Commissionerate of Central Excise and Customs in Orissa.
In this seminar experts present their view in on the Implementation of Proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) . Chief guest S Dutt Majumdar, Member of the Central Board of Excise and Customs, admitted that the GST would have to be rolled out without ironing out flaws and it would improve with time.
He gave a brief description of the features that the proposed GST regime is likely to have. He said the GST is a logical corollary of the VAT and service tax regime that were introduced in 2005 and 2004.
The GST would bring in a paradigm shift in the indirect taxation process by replacing the concept of point of manufacture with the twin points of production and consumption, he said.
The proposed GST regime would have three components- the state GST, the Central GST and the Integrated GST which is actually the sum of the first two components. The GST regime would be IT-enabled and this is being directly implemented by Nandan Nilekany of the Unique Identity (UID) Project fame.
Activities like registration, return filing and documentations, would be on line and steps are being taken to make it user-friendly. The proposed regime would have at least four rates with a clearly-defined common exemption list acceptable to both the Centre and the states, Majumdar said.
He said that since raising funds is the responsibility of the Centre and the states, new legislations need to be passed in Parliament and ratified by the states.
A dispute redressal mechanism also needs to be in place. The issue of threshold for taxable turnover is also to be thrashed out for a common level for both the state and the Central GST purpose.
Enforcement and monitoring would be done by both the Central and state agencies but in a coordinated way so that the small traders are not harassed. The GST would subsume a lot of taxes like luxury tax, entertainment tax and state specific taxes like Purchase tax in force in Punjab and Haryana.
While petroleum products are likely to be outside the ambit of GST for reasons of social purposes, tobacco and alcohol products would be in it. The picture of 'taxation utopia' presented by Majumdar was contested by state Commissioner of Commercial Tax Nikunja Bihari Dhal.
He pointed out that promises made by the Centre during the VAT regime had been violated and that it is difficult to accept the rosy picture being put forward by the advocates of GST.
The Centre did not compensate the loss of the Central Sales Tax (CST), which is a major source of revenue for Odisha. No state government is sure about its share of the service tax, he said adding that the 13th Finance Commission's report has not inspired confidence among the states.
Taking the cue, the traders also pointed out several lapses of the agreed features of the VAT regime at the time of its induction. Most of them pointed out that the VAT regime had also promised a uniform rate of taxation across the country, but the states have merrily violated the agreed floor rates.
The common refrain was that the GST regime, as proposed, would hardly bring in relief to traders. Concluding the discussion with the admission that the GST rollout will have many flaws at the beginning which can be resolved later, Majumdar, however, was categorical that the GST implementation is inevitable.
Source :- orissadiary.com