(HT)
Around 4 lakh people contribute 95% of GST collections, while 35% of those who have filed returns mostly paid no tax, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday. He provided these figures emerging from studies in response to a query at industry chamber Ficci’s 90th AGM here on whether the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is proving a burden for small businesses.
“According to studies done on GST collections, of all those who have registered in the new regime, 95% of the taxes comes from 400,000 people, who are paying irrespective of the procedure involved,” he said.“For 35% of the returns, the tax paid is either mostly nil, or negligible,” he said.Admitting that the return compliance burden was a legitimate issue being examined by the GST Council, Jaitley said this “federal institution” had successfully managed to rationalise the rates for many items “in a span of 3-4 months”.
