NEW DELHI: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday introduced four GST bills in Lok Sabha that provide for a maximum tax rate of 40 per cent, an anti-profiteering body and arrests for evading taxes in a bid to overhaul India's fragmented indirect tax system.All the four bills will be taken up together in Lok Sabha for discussion on Wednesday.With this, the roll out of Goods and Service Tax (GST) - the biggest tax reform since independence - entered the last lap. A similar tax will be levied by states through a separate State-GST law which is not part of the legislations introduced in the Lok Sabha today but would have to be brought by all states in their assemblies.Actual rates would, however, be a four-tier tax structure of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent as approved by the GST Council . A 2.5 per cent tax is prescribed for suppliers.As anti-profiteering measure, it provides for constituting an Authority to examine whether input tax credits availed by any registered taxable person, or the reduction in the price on account of any reduction in the tax rate, have actually resulted in a commensurate reduction in the price of the said goods and/or services supplied by him.The law provides for arrest, ordered by no less than a Tax Commissioner, in case of suppression of any transaction or evading taxes. The government proposes to roll out GST by July 1. The Council will meet again on March 31, and will finalise the rules and formats for the new indirect tax regime.PwC India Indirect Tax Leader Pratik Jain said "a few important changes have been proposed in the GST bills which include zero rating of supplies to SEZs, introduction of 'duty drawback' and exclusion of J&K from the definition of 'India' for GST purposes".

Source: Times of India March 27, 2017 16:20 UTC