# Business

Traders’ call to exempt tea from levy of GST

| September 17, 2016 8:21 pm

Tea traders here on Saturday appealed to the Centre to exempt tea from levy of the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) and remove it from the list of taxable items under the GST Act.

If total exemption was not possible, at least tea should be exempted from GST at first point sale made in the public tea auction centres, licensed by the Tea Board of India, Tea Traders Association of Coimbatore Chairman UV Saraf said.

For subsequent sales, the rate should be fixed not exceeding five per cent, he said in his address to the 34th Annual General Meeting of the association.

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He said though the association members welcomed the introduction of GST scheduled from April next, they had certain apprehension as tea will fall under the category of 18 per cent Revenue Neutral Rate.

Presently, VAT is charged at five per cent for estate teas and a concessional one per cent for Bought Leaf Factory teas in Tamil Nadu, he said, and appealed to the law makers to take up the matter with the State and Central governments to get total exemption from GST for auction sales throughout the country or a minimum rate since tea was an agricultural produce of mass consumption.

On pan-India e-auction system implemented from June last, Saraf said the association wanted participation of more buyers in the platform, which can create competition for quality tea and ensure fair price realisation for the manufacturers.

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GST Council to discuss crucial issue of dual control on Friday

GST Council to discuss crucial issue of dual control on Friday

 (19:02) 

New Delhi, Dec 22 (IANS) The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council will on Friday, the second day of its ongoing seventh meet, discuss the vexed issue of cross empowerment or dual control of assessee jurisdiction under the pan-India indirect tax regime, said informed sources.

"The issue of dual control is laid out in the agenda of this ongoing seventh Council meet. It will be discussed tomorrow (day-two)," Finance Ministry sources told IANS.

The solution to the critical issue has eluded consensus over six previous meetings of the GST Council.

Day one of the two-day Council meet ended on Thursday with no discussion on dual control but discussed the GST bills, the source added.

The three GST bills - Central GST (cGST), Integrated GST and State Compensation Law - need to be approved by the Council before they can be tabled in the Parliament. 

The deadlock on the issue in the GST Council has raised questions on the targeted implementation date of April 1, 2017 for the indirect tax regime. 

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been emphasising that the luxury of time is not available for the GST implementation for the reason that if April 1, 2017, is the first possible day it can be implemented, then the last date also is constitutionally defined as September 16, 2017.

"So the discretion as to when to implement is only five months and 16 days and that's why we don't have the luxury of time because after five months, the curtains will come down on the old taxation powers," Jaitley had said earlier.

With a serious question mark over the April 1 target, now that the legislations could not be tabled in the winter session, the plan appears to be to have GST come into force by default when the time given by the constitutional amendment will automatically expire for roll out of the new indirect tax regime.