cement is one of just two items “of common use” still in the 28 per cent Goods and Services Tax (GST) slab, and the Modi government’s next priority is to move it to a lower bracket, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today.
“All other building materials have already been transferred from 28 per cent to 18 per cent and 12 per cent [slabs]. The sun is setting on the 28 per cent slab,” Jaitley wrote in a Facebook blog post.
Jailtey outlined the impact of the GST, pointing to multiple markets and inefficiency in interstate sales before its implementation, and highlighting positive changes such as lower tax evasion.
India probably had the worst indirect tax system anywhere in the world. Both the Centre and the State Governments were entitled to levy a set of taxes. There were 17 taxes levied. An entrepreneur, therefore, faced seventeen inspectors, seventeen returns and seventeen assessments
He said the government was close to completing the “first set of rate of rationalisation i.e. phasing out the 8 per cent slab except in luxury and sin goods”.
