GST COUNCIL EYES SLAB REDUCTION

The GST Council might replace the 12% and 18% slabs

with a 14-15 per cent one, said Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi on Thursday. While addressing a seminar on the GST, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Modi said this slab rationalisation was likely to be taken up only after the GST collections have reached ~1 trillion. Experts claim this might take nine months to a year to reach this target.

The Goods and Services Tax Council might replace the 12 per cent and 18 per cent slabs with a 14-15 per cent one, said Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi on Thursday.

While addressing a seminar on the GST, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, Modi said this slab rationalisation was likely to be taken up only after the GST collections have reached ~1 trillion. Experts claim this might take nine months to a year to reach this target.

This would reduce the number of GST rates to four. Also, the GST rates of items such as refrigerators, washing machines, small television sets, and paint and varnish could go down further after they were cut from 28 per cent to 18 per cent recently.

At present, around 49 countries use a single GST rate, 28 use two rates and four countries, including India, have more.

Except for April, the GST has never yielded revenue of ~1 trillion. This was also an aberration since arrears of the previous months were paid. In July, ~964.83 billion was collected, against ~956.1 billion in June and ~940 billion in May.