Union finance minister Arun Jaitley with MoS Santosh Gangwar and Reneue secretary Hasmukh Adhia addressing a press conference on the firsrt day of the 14th Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council at SKICC in Srinagar on Thursday. PTISrinagar: Foodgrains and common-use products like hair oil, soaps and toothpaste as also electricity will cost less from July 1when the GST is scheduled to be rolledout as the all-powerful GST Council today finalized tax rates for bulk of the items.
While the Council fitted all but six items in 5, 12, 18 or 28 percent tax brackets, cars will attract the top rate as also a cess in the range of 1 to 15 percent on top of it.
Small cars will be charged 1 percent cess on top of 28 percent tax, mid-sized and luxury cars will attract cess of 15 percent on top of the peak rate.
Aerated drinks too have been put in the 28 percent bracket along with a cess of 12 percent, but the rates for bid is along with gold, footwear, bidi, biscuits and agriculture equipment would be decided later.
While meat, fresh vegetables, honey, jaggery, prasadam, kumkum, bindi, pappad and contraceptives have been exempt from GST levy, items like pizza bread, sevaiya, condensed milk, frozen vegetables will attract 5 percent levy, as per the items list put on CBEC website late in night.
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) on coal has been brought down to 5 percent from the current tax incidence of 11.69 percent, thereby making electricity generation cheaper.
Common use products like hair oil, soaps and toothpaste will be charged with a single national sales tax or GST of 18percent instead of present 22-24 percent tax incidence through a combination of central and state government levies.
ACs and refrigerators will fall in the 28 percent tax slab while life-saving drugs have been kept at 5 percent rate.
All capital goods and all industrial intermediaries would attract 18 percent tax instead of 28 percent.
Milk and curd will continue to be exempt from taxation when the GST replaced current indirect taxes. 'Mithai' or sweets will attract 5 percent levy.
Daily-use items like sugar, tea, coffee (barring instant coffee) and edible oil will attract the lowest tax rate of 5percent, almost the same as current incidence.
While frozen meat will attract a GST of 12 percent, Ayurvedic or homeopathy medicines, agarbatti, umbrella, electric vehicles and mobile phone manufacturing will be taxed at 12 percent.
Pastries and cakes, pasta, ice cream and soups, instant food mixes, betel nut, vinegar and sharbat will attract a 18 percent tax, while the highest tax of 28 percent will be levied on chewing gum, chocolates, custard powder and waffles containing chocolate.
The GST Council, which also finalized 7 set of rules for the new indirect tax regime in the meeting, will meet tomorrow to finalize tax rates on service. Two set of rules on transition provision and returns have been referred to legal committee.
The GST rates for all but six items were finalized at the first day of the two-day meeting here of the GST Council, headed by union finance minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state representatives.
Prices of foodgrains, especially wheat and rice, will come down as they will be exempt from the GST. Currently, some states levy Value Added Tax (VAT) on them.
"We have finalized tax rates for a majority of items as well as the exempt list (at today's meeting)," Jaitley told reporters here.
Out of the 1,211 items, the GST rate for all but six was decided on the first day, he said.
"Rates have been finalized for the rest," he said, adding GST for packaged food items is to be finalized later.
"(With) the standard rate items of 12.5 percent and 15 percent, plus the cascading effect of local taxes, the tax rate was going up to 30-31 percent. These 30-31 percent taxes... have all been brought down to 28 percent.
"Of these, some are items to be used by common man soap, oil -- that has been brought down to 18 percent. So there will be a substantial reduction as far as those items are concerned. We have kept one criteria in mind that the overall impact is not inflation, in fact it brings down the costs," Jaitley added.
Revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia said 7 percent of the items fall under the exempt list while 14 percent have been put in the lowest tax bracket of 5 percent. Another 17 percent items are in 12 percent tax bracket, 43 percent in 18percent tax slab and only 19 percent of goods fall in the top tax bracket of 28 percent.
As many as 81 percent of the items will attract 18 percent or less GST.
On gold, states demanded a 4 percent tax even though theater is not among the 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent approved bands.
Jaitley said there will be no inflationary impact as most of the rates which are at 31 percent have been brought down to 28 percent.
Coal will attract the GST of 5 percent as against the current tax incidence of 11.69 percent.
"Cereals will be in exempt list. But what is to be done with packaged and branded food that has to be separately decided. We are yet to make a decision on that," he said.
Jaitley said the key feature of today's rate decision has been that "tax rate under GST will not go up for any of the commodities. There is no increase. On many commodities, there is a reduction particularly because the cascading effect of tax is gone."
"Of several commodities, we have consciously brought down the tax. In the overall basket there would be a reduction, but we are banking on the hope that because of a more efficient system, evasion would be checked and tax buoyancy would go up. That despite reduction the revenue neutrality and tax buoyancy thereafter would be maintained," he added.
