Hinting at the upcoming reforms in GST, Chairman of Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) Vivek Johri said that a jurisdiction free GST regime can be expected. He said India could consider a significant shift in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) including a jurisdiction-free regime as part of the next set of reforms for the five-year-old indirect tax system.
Johri said that we need to discuss is whether we still need a territorial jurisdiction at least within the board. “I think technology makes it possible for us to not be tied to a particular geographic location,” he added.
Particularly for financial services sector or enterprises that have pan-India presence, the Industry has requested centralised registration and audit, Johri said. “I think we need to seriously think about them because at one level technology makes it possible, but it requires a lot of discussion with the states…We’ll have to initiate that discussion,” he suggested.
CBIC has already announced the online grievance redressal system, which will be fully functional in the next three months, he said. On rate rationalisation, Johri said the expectation was that there would be three rates and for that a lot of thinking and adjustment are required. However the Group of Ministers have yet to give its final report on rate rationalisation. Johri said the issue in his view is that you cannot have a rate rationalisation unless some rates go up. “This would mean re-slotting some items under different rate slabs,” he added.
