Pangs of GST - Govt sets up Working Groups to address peculiar problems of industry
By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, MAR 25, 2017: WITH the Union Government setting the stage for the passage of the GST Bills, the GST Council has set up Working Groups to address peculiar problems of some of the sectors for their hassle-free transition into the new tax regime. Some of the key issues are:
i. Services provided between establishments of same entity without invoice or payment in certain sectors with high volumes of transactions with operations spread on a country-wide basis;
ii. Compliance challenges for small and medium sector in an automated environment with end-to-end matching of invoices;
iii. Issues raised by sectors employing large work force and with vast disparity, e.g., textiles;
iv. Special regime in sectors with disproportionate high value with relatively lesser value addition and large number of job workers;
v. Cascading due to the exclusion of certain products from the GST and commitments relating fiscal stability clause in Production Sharing Contracts;
vi. Issues due to existing abatements in transport sector together with compliance challenges;
vii. Critical infrastructure of the country
viii. Exports, including value addition and manufacturing in domestic tariff area (DTA) for export /EOUs and SEZs.
ix. Government services to obtain clarity as to what constitutes a taxable supply for consideration.
Recognizing all such concerns, it has been decided to set up some Working Groups to address the concerns of some key sectors:
a. Banking, Financial : Upender Gupta, Commissioner, GST and Insurance Sector
b. Telecommunication : Amitabh Kumar, JS, TRU-II
c. Exports, including EOUs and SEZs : Dr Tejpal Singh, ADG, DGEP, Manish Sinha, Commissioner, CX
d. IT /ITES : M. Vinod Kumar, Chief Commissioner
e. Transport and Logistics : J. M. Kennedy, ADG DGRI (Road, rail, air, sea, pipelines, airport, sea port)
f. Textiles : Yogendra Garg, Commissioner CX.
g. MSMEs, including job work : Manish Sinha, Commissioner CX
h. Oil & Gas (Upstream and Downstream) : P. K. Jain, Chief Commissioner (AR)
i. Gems and Jewellery : Reyaz Ahmad, Director TRU
j. Services received and provided by : D. P. Nagendra Kumar, Pr. Commissioner the Government
The Working Groups have been directed to take a quick look at the key issues and suggest ways and means to overcome the key concerns. They may interact with concerned administrative ministries and key Industry bodies/associations, professionals and other suitable persons.
The emphasis of the Groups would be on procedural simplification and possible rate structure and will have to submit their reports latest by April 10, 2017.
Based on their initial reports, decision on further action to expand the working groups by including officers from the state governments may be taken.
(F. No. 349/36/2017-GST)