Next GST Council meet to decide on anti-profiteering mechanism

NEW DELHI: The Goods and Services Tax Council will at its next meeting finalise a mechanism to operationalise the anti-profiteering clause which seeks to protect consumers interest, finance minister Arun Jaitley told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday. He said a proper decision would be taken on Air India's future and it would be in the government's interest to protect jobs at the airline.

Replying to a discussion on supplementary demands for grants which was later passed by the LS he said demonetisation had squeezed terror funding.

Anti-profiteering provision
The GST Council comprising state finance minister will meet on August 5 to take stock of implementation of GST which was rolled from July 1. The anti-profiteering provision mandates businesses to pass on the benefits arising out of lower taxes to the consumer by way of commensurate reduction in prices.

On concerns raised by members with regard to impact of GST on prices, Jaitley said it would be mandatory for manufacturers to pass on the benefits of reduction in taxes to consumers. He hoped that the decision of price cut by automobile sector on account of benefit of input tax credit would be followed by others manufacturers.

“What if input tax benefit is not transfered to consumers?...we are meeting a few days from now... In a short while, we are going to finalise the entire mechanism as far as anti-profiteering is concerned.

“All you need is to make a few examples and then everybody will fall in line. If there is benefit of the input credit then cost correspondingly must decline,” he said while replying to a discussion on supplementary demands for grants. The industry was resistant to this clause, he said, adding, it has been put in the GST law for initial few years to save the interest of consumers. The supplementary demands include a provision of Rs 2,000 crore for refund of Central GST to industries in hilly and special category states of North East, Uttrakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Demonetisation impact
Jaitley said demonetisation squeezed terror funding with the number of stone pelters coming down in Jammu & Kashmir. He said the RBI is in the process of exercise of counting the notes as also identifying fake notes and will give the total number of returned notes after the completion of exercise. “In the last few months, security forces have had an upper hand...,” Jaitley said. He said in 2008 to 2010 there were thousands of stone pelters on streets.

“In last few months, there have not been more than 25-50 or 100 stone pelters on the streets. There is one reason, terror funding has been squeezed,” he said responding to opposition charge that demonetisation had failed to curb terrorism and fake currency.