Business Today 12-Jan-20

The Goods & Services Tax (GST) is no ordinary tax. It is conceived to be the lifeline of India’s tax collection machinery – to plug loopholes, digitise and formalise one sector after another. Once exempted industries such as liquor, real estate and fuel are included, GST would account for nearly all of India’s indirect tax collection and more than half of India’s entire tax revenue. Failure of GST, clearly, is not an option. But ever since it was unveiled on July 1, 2017, the long-awaited GST has been, to borrow from Winston Churchill, “a riddle wrapped up in an enigma”. It was supposed to ramp up the Centre’s revenue so comfortably that the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley didn’t hesitate in promising a 14 per cent annual hike to states…

LOW VOLTAGE Electricity consumption fell 13.2 per cent in October from a year ago, posting the steepest decline in over 12 years. Power demand in the two most industrial states also fell – 22.4 per cent in Maharashtra and 18.8 per cent in Gujarat Source: Central Electricity Authority; Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell; CMIE; Reserve Bank of India; Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation THERMAL COOLS… Thermal meets most of India’s power needs. So, a fall implies demand deceleration. Generation dropped 2 per cent in April-October this year, the first ever fall in a decade …DIESEL SLIDES… Diesel accounts for 40 per cent of India’s oil requirements. But demand fell for three consecutive months (August to October). The -7.36 per cent slide is the steepest in three years …AND ATF…

BANKS REDUCE BAD LOANS ↘ Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of banks fell from ₹10.18 lakh crore in March 2018 to ₹8.94 lakh crore in March 2019 ↘ This is mostly due to lesser incremental slippages in bank credit, recoveries in some large NPAs and also some write-offs ↘ At the end of H1FY20, overall gross NPAs stood marginally higher at ₹9.18 lakh crore, on a sequential basis ↘ Public sector banks account for a lion’s share of gross NPAs – 80 per cent ↘ But they have reduced bad loans substantially, for example, from ₹8.08 lakh crore in the September quarter of 2018 to ₹7.27 lakh crore in the same quarter this year. ↘ Private sector banks’ NPAs have stayed within ₹2 lakh crore since September 2017 KNOCKING ON OMBUDSMAN’S…

Ranchi-headquartered ‘Baba Rice’ is a household name in the eastern part of India. Even though it’s not a premium Basmati brand, an average consumer in Jharkhand or adjoining Odisha would prefer it to national brands such as Daawat or India Gate as is evident from the 70 per cent marketshare Baba Rice enjoys in the region. Yet, parent Baba Agro Foods recently rolled out the same rice under another brand ‘Ranchi Gold’. Intriguingly, while Baba Rice is priced at ₹2,640 per quintal, Ranchi Gold is just under, at ₹2,610. Why? Baba Agro Foods Chairman Yogesh Kumar Sahu says the marketshare of Baba Rice has eroded 10 per cent since the arrival of GST in July 2017. Ranchi Gold was his desperate defence mechanism. ‘Baby Doll’, ‘Babuji’, ‘Apple’ and even ‘Kakaji’…

Fake invoices are sold for 1-2 per cent commission. For example, by selling a fake invoice (of something that has 8 per cent GST) of, say, ₹500 crore, one can make ₹5-10 crore; the buyer can claim input tax credit of up to 18 per cent A business can have group companies. Each sells to the other and the one with highest sales closes down. Winding up petition costs just ₹12,000 Many use trains and bullock carts, instead of trucks, to avoid e-way bills. This helps avoid reporting goods transported and paying GST Family-owned businesses book personal expenses as business expenses and avail input tax crww edit A finished good might be taxed higher but if it is divided into two or three components, it might attract lower tax. For…

Even as the country was glued to protests against the Citizen Amendment Act, state representatives had gathered in the national capital on a wintery December evening to discuss something as mundane as improving collections from Goods and Services Tax (GST). But the 38th GST Council meeting, a stone’s throw from New Delhi’s protest site, Jantar Mantar, on December 18 also saw its share of protests, arguments and drama. Amid the gloom and doom in the economy that has resulted a big shortfall in GST collections, which has, in turn, led it to a delay in central government payments to states — the meeting, as was expected, turned out to be stormy, with state finance ministers up in arms against the Centre. The reasons were simple. A number of states are…