STILL A LONG WAY TO GO FOR SMOOTH ROLLOUT

Implementation has been mostly through trial and error method This has meant that nearly each meeting of the all powerful GST Council has resulted in major changes in the rules or rates.

In May, GST Council decided on a new format in which only one return will have to be filed in a month. Even GST Network was decided by Centre to be converted into a 100 per cent government- owned company. GST rates have been rationalised multiple times. Many rates were slashed after the government realised that it had wrongly calculated higher taxes on these items. Lack of clarity in GST law as to the applicability of provisions and complex return filing procedures were the major problems. The controversial provisions of the liability to pay tax on reverse charge basis has been deferred till June 30. The provisions for tax deducted and collected at source also remain suspended till June 30. While the government has set up an anti- profiteering body to ensure that companies pass on low costs to end user, the absence of guidelines make companies worry. The anomalies in GST has affected exporters greatly. In order to encourage exports, the government has been refunding taxes paid on exported products to exporters. However, after the rollout of GST, the duty refund processes witnessed inordinate delay. Calling the GST regime more “primitive” than the VAT, West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra has recently said that the Centre is using ledger for manual record of refunds due to lack of interface between the GSTN and customs electronic date interchange as well as the DGFT. Experts feel that difficulties being faced by people and companies are due to the complexity of the fiscal system and argue that it’s not yet the time to write an obituary for the tax reform.