Industry representatives, during a meeting with Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia over the last few days, raised concerns about the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, particularly relating to electricity, petroleum, and real estate sectors. “Contrary to this, the Central Government’s view before Rajya Sabha Select Committee on GST indicates that inclusion of electricity is not envisaged in GST. Similarly, industry is concerned about the shoring up of costs that would occur in the petroleum industry due to their inability to claim GST credit as petro-products are temporarily not included in that system. The industry representatives also said that the proposed GST setup would lead to a cascading of taxes, and they also proposed a method to avoid this. “The draft GST legislation provides that transaction value would include all taxes other than CGST, SGST and IGST,” the statement said.

Source: The Hindu August 19, 2016 20:15 UTC