Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will address students at his alma mater, Harvard University on Wednesday. He will be talking about the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and also interact with the students on the tax reform.
His speech comes days after the 22nd GST Council meeting, chaired by Jaitley, which announced changes to GST rates of 27 items, among a host of other changes.
- Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed students at Harvard University on 12 October
- He said that GST Council will bring in real estate under the new-tax ambit during the next meet on 9 November
- Jaitley said 80 percent of the GST revenue going to the state government
- In his speech, he asserted that the tax department of India was “extremely corrupt”
- The IMF on 11 October lowered India’s growth projection to 6.7 percent in 2017
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GST Council to Include Real Estate Under New Taxation Soon
Arun Jaitley also announced that the GST Council will bring in real estate under the ambit of the new tax system in the next meeting which will be held on 9 November in Guwahati.
Currently, a GST rate of 12 percent is levied on property that are under construction. The builders pass the input credit of both services and material on to the customer.
Land and other immovable property have been exempted from GST. There have multiple calls for bringing real estate under GST as it is believed to be a hotbed for black money and corruption.
"No Economic Slowdown, Just Shock to Shadow Economy"
When asked if demonetisation was an operational failure in the question-answer session after the lecture, Jaitley said, “Don’t substitute emotional logic of lives lost for economic logic”, adding that the move has cut terror funding. He said the logic of demonetisation was not to “confiscate cash” but to “identify the owner of the money”.
He also said that the economic slowdown in India is not a slowdown at all, rather, it’s “just a shock to the shadow economy”.
"Note Ban, GST Tough Laws With Short Term Problems"
Jaitley spoke at length about the benefits of GST on the common people adding that some people are going to be upset about GST getting implemented as “leakages can be traced” now.
He also said that bringing real estate under the ambit of GST will benefit consumers.
He added that state governments have been largely supportive, with the exception of a few political parties.
80 percent of the GST revenue going to the state government. They are happy but their political party says the ‘good’ is ours but ‘problems’ are yours.