Despite calls for further delaying the launch of long-awaited goods and services tax (GST), Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said that the government is ready to roll out the GST and will launch it as planned on July 1 to boost economic growth and state revenues. In this regard Adhia asked the firms not to count on a postponement of a tax more than a decade in the making.
Noting that the entire parallel economy will vanish after rollout of the GST, the Revenue Secretary said that it would also transform the county’s $ 2 trillion economy and market of 1.3 billion people into a single economic zone with common indirect taxes - something that neither the European Union nor the United States can boast.
Adhia said that the government is expecting revenue buoyancy to go up as the benefit of avoiding tax which was accruing to the entrepreneur or to the trader - will now come to them. He expressed confident that indirect revenues would exceed a target of 9-10 percent in the fiscal year to March 2018 and added that expected revenue buoyancy would leave room to lower GST rates and simplify the tax structure.