New Delhi: The GST council will hold its next meeting mid-June ahead of the Budget. The council will take stock of the GST collection pattern and the steps to curb tax evasion. ET Now's Ruchi Bhatia learnt from government sources that rate cuts for high tax bracket are unlikely before the Budget.

It may be noted that the GST collections have crossed 1 lakh crore mark in the last two months and the council will be looking at the collection pattern over the next few months to see if it continues to remain in the same range. 

 

There have been demands of rate cuts for items which are in the higher tax bracket of 28 per cent like Auto parts and cement. However, the rate cut is unlikely to happen until and unless the rate stabilises. The channel also learnt that government is a little unsure whether high tax is the reason for the slowdown in auto sales. The council will assess all of that before they go ahead with the rate cut.

 

The focus will primarily be on merging the tax slabs of 12% and 18% tax in medium terms. The government has been talking about this for a long time now. The council will also focus on ease of filing taxes, e-invoice so some tweaks can be expected there. 

 

Apart from this, the focus will very much be on ensuring that the current tax collection pattern continues so that GST collection is over the 1 lakh crore mark over the next few months. 

 

Worth mentioning here is that GST collection scaled an all-time high of over Rs 1.13 lakh crore in April, up from Rs 1.06 lakh crore in the previous month. As per finance ministry official statement, the total gross GST revenue collected in April 2019 was Rs 1,13,865 crore of which Central GST was Rs 21,163 crore, State GST (SGST) was Rs 28,801 crore, Integrated GST was Rs 54,733 crore and cess was Rs 9,168 crore.

 

Published On : 27-05-2019

 

Source : Times Now News