'GST has stabilised faster in India than other countries'

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said that the goods and service tax (GST) has stabilised in a very short time which provides an opportunity to widen its base and further rationalise the rates in the future. Also, he said that the goods and service tax has brought about an entire change in the indirect tax system in the country.

Jaitley further said that the goods and service tax has "stabilised in a very short time in India" as compared to various other countries. "Therefore, it gives us an opportunity in the times to come to increase its base and rationalise the structure as it continues to evolve," he said at an event to mark International Customs Day.

At present, the goods and service tax has four rates of 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 28 per cent. It is to be noted that the GST Council in its November meeting had decided to keep only sin goods and white goods under the 28 per cent tax bracket and moved 178 items from the highest tax bracket to 18 per cent.

Thirteen items were moved from the 18 per cent to 12 per cent bracket; eight items from 12 per cent to 5 per cent; six items from 18 per cent to 5 per cent, while six other items moved from 5 per cent to zero per cent slab. Following the reduction on more than 200 items, the goods and service tax collections hit the lowest in November from Rs 80,808 crore in the previous month.

However, halting two months of decline, the collections gathered momentum in December, rising to Rs 86,703 crore. Total goods and service tax collections in October were over Rs 83,000 crore. In September, the goods and service tax mop-up was over Rs 92,150 crore.

Improving India's ranking in the World Bank's ease of doing business index is "reasonably possible" if various machineries, including the tax department, make concerted efforts to improve the three laggard parameters, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday. He also said that WTO talks have not made much headway in most areas except trade facilitation, which helps cut costs and make it more efficient.

"Therefore, even without international agreement to that effect, it is even within larger benefits and interest of our domestic economy to ensure that trade facilitation takes place," he said. Citing the success achieved by India in Ease of Doing Business ranking, Jaitley said that the country has moved ahead from 142 to 100th position in the last three years and the last 30 being in one year.