relief measures +NEW DELHI: The Centre will use Friday's GST Council to push throughand calm jittery businesses complaining about the new tax regime. The panel of state and Union finance ministers is expected to ease exporters' pain by allowing electronic payment of taxes through "virtual currency", while announcing a series of steps for small and medium enterprises as it seeks to smoothen the implementation of GST.Expectations of a raft of measures were triggered after PM Narendra Modi 's strong defence of the health of the economy on Wednesday, which he backed up with a meeting with finance minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah on Thursday.Shah, who is supposed to provide critical political feedback, cancelled his return to Kerala on Thursday for the planned padyatra. Jaitley skipped a scheduled speech at the India Economic Summit on Thursday evening.Sources, however, described the meeting as routine. Subsequently, this will be adjusted against the refund payable, said sources.For domestic purchases, exporters will transfer the virtual currency to the suppliers, who can use it to pay taxes. Exporters have complained that a shift from the earlier system, which exempted them from payment of taxes on inputs used for export to a new mechanism where they are expected to pay IGST and seek refunds later, has pushed up their working capital requirement and is making them uncompetitive.Other measures to address concerns related to Exim scrips, which are used to pay taxes, are being considered.

Source: Times of India October 05, 2017 20:02 UTC