Awareness programme on Goods and Service Tax (GST) was organised here on Monday by Central Board of Excise and Customs in association with Commercial Tax Department, Tamil Nadu. As per the directive of Ranjan Kumar Routray, Chief Commissioner, Central Excise (Coimbatore Zone), this programme was conducted to facilitate and sensitise the trade and industry bodies to GST. While delivering the inaugural address, Assistant Commissioner of Central Excise, Thoothukudi, A. Muthiah said the Central GST Act, Cess for Compensation to State Act, Integrated GST Act and Union Territory GST Act had been enacted by the government. These Acts would come into effect on July 1. So many rules were cleared for various process of registration, filing of returns and refund and the GST council would play an important role to implement it. Initially, tax rates on zero percent, five percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent were announced to be levied on goods and recently, three percent GST levy on gold and other precious metals was announced by the government.
Moreover, he said the exporters had to pay tax on raw material and after export, they could claim refund of tax paid. Within seven days of filing the claim, the exporters could get 90 percent of the claim amount under the GST rule. To know more about GST, the stakeholders could visit www.cbec.gov.in
Deputy Commissioner of Commercial Taxes, Thoothukudi, P. Maheswaran while presenting an overview of GST, said over 90 percent of the existing tax assessees under the Tirunelveli Circle had migrated to GST. Registration, filing of returns and payment were the key factors to be learnt in GST. There were some mismatch in the PAN during registration and people could approach the concerned circle to make amends. Due to introduction of e-way bill, mobile checkpoints could only exist, he hoped. Assistant Commissioner (Commercial Taxes), K. Gopinath, Inspector Rakesh and Superintendent M. Gabriel also spoke. Superintendent P. Singaraja proposed a vote of thanks.