Goods and Services Tax (GST)

Manish Sisodia, Finance Minister, Delhi spoke to CNBC-TV18‘s Timsy Jaipuria on the side-lines of an event organised by industry body ASSOCHAM.

Thermax expects 3-4 segments to open up in Q4 and Q1 of FY18 supporting medium and large projects, which had gone dry in this financial year.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley thinks universal basic income is a good tool to help alleviate poverty in India, but is apprehensive whether states and the Centre will come on board over the radical idea if it is taken up for consideration.

Budgeting for the year is going to be tricky this year due to the rollout of GST, Girish Vanvari, Head of Tax at KPMG India says. People usually don‘t expect a lot of tinkering with indirect tax rate in the Budget.

"This (demonetisation), coupled with GST, in the days to come will ensure much larger revenues as far as states and the central government are concerned and expand the size as far as the formal economy is concerned," Jaitley said at the CII Partnership Summit here.

India will likely roll-out a country-wide goods and services tax (GST) from July 1, three months behind the original April 1 schedule, even as the Centre and states hammering out a consensus on Monday on the two thorny issues of “dual control” and taxing rights of goods moved through high seas.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today reiterated that the Centre is still aiming to roll out the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime from April 1 if all pending issues are sorted out.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh at the biannual conference, Varnam, held in Bengaluru, paint sector head honchos said they are all expecting Union Budget 2017 to boost affordable housing and help them recover all the ground lost on account of demonetisation.

Here is a recap of political events that made news in the year gone by.

India faces the risk of missing a self-imposed deadline to launch the GST from April 2017 after a meeting of federal and state officials ended last Sunday without fixing who would administer the tax.

India‘s plans to roll out a countrywide Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1, 2017 appear increasingly unlikely with the Centre and states failing on Sunday to conclude discussions on several key aspects including the main enabling legislations.

The last ditch efforts by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley-led GST Council to hammer out a deal over Goods and Services Tax (GST) failed on Sunday deferred the meeting to December 22 and 23, dashing hopes of the passage of GST Bill in the ongoing Winter Session of Parliament.

Demonetisation, says Drabu, is a separate issue altogether and will not affect the functioning of GST in the country. But he points out the inadequate IT preparedness for GST of the country.

The impasse is a matter of concern for the corporates, who feel it may destabilise the economy and hurt business, said Sachin Menon, Head Of Indirect Tax, KPMG.

TV Narendran says the steel industry as a whole has done well in the last year. The government has helped the industry to deal with anti-dumping duties, but the imposition of minimum import prices has always been a temporary measure.

"The government is trying to do many things within a short period of time," says Harsh Mariwala, Chairman of Marico. Several traders are still not prepared for GST, he adds.

The promoters are reducing their stake in the company via the IPO, says Gautam. The promoters will hold 85.5 percent stale post IPO.

CNBC-TV18 learns that that GST Council meeting which was scheduled on November 25 has been cancelled. No new date is yet to be finalized.

Quoting sources, Sapna Das of CNBC-TV18 reports that the proposed authority may also prescribe penalty against profiteering.

Jaitley's informal meeting with state finance ministers failed to arrive at a common ground on how Centre and states will control assessees under the new regime that will subsume an array of taxes like excise duty and service tax as well as VAT, multiple ministers participating in the meeting said.