Electricity, petroleum, realty likely to come under GST net

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 14

The GST Council in the coming months would aim to reduce the number of GST slabs and bring items like electricity, petroleum and real estate under the GST ambit, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi said today.

Addressing the Ficci AGM, the Bihar Deputy CM who also heads the Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to look at the IT challenges being faced under the GST, said electricity, real estate and petroleum products can be brought under the GST ambit once the revenue collection under the new regime stabilises.

Electricity, real estate, stamp duty and petroleum products should become part of GST. This would be our (GST Council) endeavour,” he said.

He said it would be difficult to specify any timeline for this to happen. Inclusion of these can happen without amending the Constitution, he said.

If petroleum products are brought under the GST regime, he said, it will attract the highest tax slab prevalent at that time and states would be at liberty to levy cess on it in order to protect their revenues. Both states and the Centre earn 40% of their revenue from petroleum products at present. He also hinted at the reduction of tax slabs going forward after tax collection stabilises.

The current GST regime has five tax slabs — 0%, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. An additional GST cess is also levied on certain products. Though final decision would be taken by the Council, he said, “The possible scenario could be that the current highest tax slab of 28% could be brought down to 25% and two tax slabs of 12% and 18% could be merged into one.”