press trust of india
New Delhi, June 20: The government will not blink on rolling out the GST from July 1, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Tuesday, emphasising that businesses cannot give any excuse for not being ready as enough time was given to them for preparation.
However, implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which will unify more than a dozen separate levies to create a single market, may result in “some disruption” and “technological glitches” initially as traders and the smallest of businesses will have to file returns online, he added.
Jaitley said GST, over the medium to long term, will lead to higher revenues to the Centre and states while also increasing the size of the economy and having a positive impact on GDP.
“We should be prepared that when the switchover will take place. In the short-term, there will be some challenges,” he said. “The reform step is for betterment. All reforms initially are seen as disruptive, and in the long run are seen as result yielding reform.”
Jaitley said the process of registration of existing central excise, service tax and state VAT payers in the new system was “going on well”.
“It is not a very complicated process,” he said and added that GST will check tax evasion and in the long run lead to rise in number of the assessees.
As many as 65 lakh assesses have already registered and more are expected to sign up. “65 lakh who have registered did not face problem, the five who have faced problems are on Twitter,” he quipped.
Ruling out deferring the rollout because of a small number of people who say businesses are not ready, he said when reforms are implemented “the first principle is you should never blink. If you blink, then you get derailed.”
“We have for the last six months been saying that the date is July 1. Nobody had any business to be not ready,” he said.
Jaitley said the government has already relaxed the dates for filing of initial returns and traders and businesses now have time till September 5, instead of previous August 10, for filing the returns and being ready.
“There is still two and a half months to be ready, but if he (business) is still not ready, I am afraid, but he doesn’t want to be ready,” he said.
Asked about GST’s impact on inflation, he said when tax rates come down it also has an impact on inflation, but it would also depend on monsoon and oil prices.
Centre not for farm loan waiver
New Delhi: The Centre is not considering any proposal for
farm loan waiver, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Tuesday. “There is no such proposal. We have got FRBM Act and fiscal deficit target, we intend adhering to it,” he said. The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) committee, headed by former revenue secretary N K Singh, has recommended keeping budgetary deficit at 3 per cent of the GDP in three years to March 2020. Jaitley had earlier stated that the central government will not share states’ fiscal leverage in waiving farm loans, and made it clear that the cost has to be borne by the states. Reserve Bank Governor Urjit Patel has already warned of fiscal situation likely to be going out of hands if states keep doling out funds and may stoke inflationary expectations.
