New Delhi: The Goods and Service Tax system is going to complete four years tomorrow. During the four years, several key policy initiatives have been taken by the government to make the GST system and compliance mechanism simple, transparent, and technology-driven.
Meanwhile Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said, GST has been a milestone in the economic landscape of India. Mr. Modi said, it has decreased the number of taxes, compliance burden, and overall tax burden on a common man while significantly increasing transparency, compliance, and overall collection. It has been four years since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) law, the country’s biggest tax reform, on July 1, 2017.
GST is a remarkable example of cooperative federalism wherein all the decisions have been taken in the GST Council by consensus. By replacing a multi-layered, complex indirect tax structure, GST subsumed more than a score of taxes and paved the way for making India an economic union.
The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax is a very significant step in indirect tax reforms. It came into effect on the 1st of July in 2017. It promotes the idea of ‘ONE NATION, ONE TAX, ONE MARKET.’ With the introduction of GST, the Ease of Doing Business has significantly improved in the country.
During the last four years, the Central Government in close coordination with the States and Union Territories are continuously engaged in making the GST compliance system simple and transparent. To make the system hassle-free, several key measures have been taken to reduce the compliance burden. A quarterly return monthly payment facility has been introduced from January this year to provide relief to the small taxpayers. Under the scheme, taxpayers need to file their returns on a quarterly basis.
Earlier, taxpayers had to pay taxes on a monthly basis. The taxpayer who availed of this facility now required to file eight returns instead of 24 returns in a year. Around 90 percent of the taxpayers under GST are eligible to avail benefit under this scheme.
The Government has introduced a facility of Nil filing of GSTR-3B returns by SMS which helped 22 lakh taxpayers. E-Invoicing Facility has also been implemented which reduced time and cost for generation of E-way bills which ensured hassle-free movement of goods throughout the country. Over 194 crore e-way bills have been generated so far.
To provide relief to the taxpayers and consumers during the COVID-19 pandemic, several medical types of equipment and medicines have been exempted from IGST. Besides, the amount of late fees has also been reduced to provide relief to the taxpayers.
