New delhi: The GST would not increase compliance burden on assessees and all apprehensions in this regard are misplaced, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said on Monday.
“Many people think that implementation of GST would result in increase in compliance cost. This is completely misplaced,” he said, while addressing netizens on Facebook.
Explaining the rationale, he said people have to keep different law books for filing return for various taxes like VAT and Excise in the present taxation regime.
“But with the rollout of GST, there would be a single tax and accounting for this will be very simple. It can be done through an offline excel form provided by GST Network. If someone uses this form for keeping record of purchase and sales, then he can use this for filing return. Thus, compliance would be minimised,” he said.
Adhia, who is spearheading implementation of the GST, said the Finance Ministry is gearing up for its rollout and five days training has already been given to officers. Besides, IT training for them is going on.
The government intends to implement the GST from July 1, and the GST Council headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has finalised four rate categories of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% after unifying levies like central excise, service tax and VAT.
Fitment will be done by adding the total incidence of current taxation (central plus state levies) and then putting the good or service in the tax bracket closest to it.
Adhia also said that indirect tax burden may come down in the new GST regime.
“There would be many goods and services which would be out of GST so it would provide benefit to common man in respect of taxes. The rollout of GST would be either tax neutral or there could be reduction of tax burden,” he said.
With regard to traders, he said, the tax filing would start from the threshold level of Rs 20 lakh and registration below the threshold limit is not required.
PTI