Legitimate tax system worrying Rahul Gandhi, says Arun Jaitley

However, Mr. Jaitley backs Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia’s recent comments about the need to restructure the tax rates

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday hit back at Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for terming GST the BJP’s “Gabbar Singh Tax”, saying those used to 2G and coal scams would have objections to a legitimate tax system.

The Minister said that by deciding to observe November 8, the first anniversary of the demonetisation announcement, as a “black day”, the Opposition was only betraying its faith in a cash economy.

Describing as positive and encouraging the ₹92,150 crore collected for September under the Goods and Services Tax system, Mr. Jaitley backed Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia’s recent comments about the need to restructure the tax rates to reduce the burden on small and medium businesses and the common man. This had been the “consistent stand of the government”, he said.

Late fees waived

He announced a waiver of the late fees payable for filing returns after the deadline for August and September “in view of the difficulties being faced during the return filing process”.

“The response of trade to GST registrations has been very encouraging. Around 72 lakh people have migrated from the old tax regime, while we have added 28 lakh new registrations. In all, total assessees are over 1 crore,” he said.

“And if the number of assessees increase 30-35% in the first three months, that is a positive signal. But in the first three months, because some goods are those which were manufactured in the old regime … the pattern has not yet emerged, that will take time. But the monthly collection of about ₹93,000-Rs 94,000 crore, including Integrated GST, is consistently maintained.”

“People who are filing their returns … first month, more than 56 lakh people filed it. Additionally, 14 lakh more will be filing under the composition scheme. Every month, this number will keep going up,” Mr. Jaitley said.

The GST rates and slabs, he said, are decided with two objectives in mind. “Which goods and services are taxed at what rate and second that the revenue neutrality is maintained. And when these two objectives are met with, and there is certain amount of taxation for expenditure of the State and Central governments, then the tax slabs can be rationalised.”

Pratik Jain, Leader, Indirect Tax, at PwC, said, “It seems that monthly revenue collection numbers are somewhat stabilising between ₹90,000 crore and ₹95,000 crore. The Integrated GST and compensation cess numbers also look in line with previous two months.”