Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said that the all-powerful Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council will consider bringing petroleum products within the purview of GST regime and it could happen in phases. He noted that at present, the petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel are beyond the scope of GST and added that this gives states the right to impose a value-added tax on these items.
Talking on the issue of automation of refund, Adhia said that it was meant to be automated right from day one but unfortunately people made so many mistakes in filing return that the income-tax department had to get into manual mode at the last moment. He said ‘we are again trying to make it completely automatic, the entire refund process. This is the next thing. In terms of simplification of rates, slabs, we do understand need for it, but we did what was best in the given scenario’. He also said ‘we could not have done anything other than this because we had to take care of revenue, we had to take care of concern of the poor. Certainly, we must move in that direction of something better than that’.
The GST currently has four slabs -- 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent. The GST Council, in November, had reduced the tax rate on 178 items from 28 percent to 18 percent.
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