In the first concrete step towards implementing the much awaited Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) regime, the Model GST Law was released on June 14, 2016 (“Model”), even as the Government strives to pass the enabling Constitutional Amendments. Under the Model, Central/State GST shall be leviable on all intra-state supplies of goods and/or services and Integrated GST shall be leviable on all inter-state supplies of goods and/or services.
- A new Taxable Event:
As the GST regime is meant to subsume existing indirect taxes, concepts such as manufacture, provision of service, sale of goods, etc. shall be replaced by a single taxable event: supply of goods and/or services. The term “supply” has been defined to include all forms of supply of goods and/or services made or agreed to be made for a consideration by a person in the course or furtherance of business, importation of service, and supplies made or agreed to be made without consideration such as permanent transfer of business assets, etc. Interestingly, the definition also deems the supply of any branded service by an aggregator under a brand name owned by him to be a supply by the aggregator. This all pervasive definition of “supply” has to be complemented by seamless availability of input tax credit, which has been largely addressed by the Model.
However, note that the supply of goods by a registered person to a job-worker shall not be treated as supply of goods. A negative list has also been prescribed for transactions (e.g. transactions by Government, etc.) on which GST shall not apply.Continue Reading A Step towards Belling the GST Cat