Anti-profiteering body not set up as ease of business given priority

THe authorities did non take shape an anti-profiteering personify to penalise non-transmission of GST value cuts to the consumer on the industry’s assurance and in line with the philosophy of making the tax regime and compliance to it simpler, much like it has done with simplified registration, expeditious refunds, and ease of compliance, two officials familiar with the matter said.They added that this is based on the observation that lower tax rates enhance voluntary compliance. This made the government decide against re-establishing a body like the erstwhile National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA), they said, requesting anonymity.On Wednesday, following a meeting of the GST Council, the government announced a sweeping overhaul of the GST regime, with most goods and services now charged at the rates of 5% and 18%, with only so-called de-merit goods and sin products being charged at 40%. Many products have moved from 18% or 12% to a rate of 5%. And some have moved from 28% to 18%.Speaking on the rationale of not creating a formal anti-profiteering body on Wednesday, revenue secretary Arvind Shrivastava said the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) and state tax agencies would engage with the industry to ensure transmission of benefits to the people.He said the GST system is increasingly becoming compliant with lower tax rates. When the average tax rate was 15.5% at the beginning of the GST system, the compliance was around 85-90%, now the compliance has improved to almost 97% with rates coming down, he explained. The revenue secretary is the ex-officio secretary to the GST Council.Citing the experience with the erstwhile anti-profiteering body NAA, he said, “Only 704 cases were registered with the authority and 60% of the cases were initiated” within the first two-three years of GST implementation and the total profiteering amount that was alleged were ₹4,362 crore.”“We have seen in the past that the industry largely passed on the benefits of rate cuts to the consumer. The industry has made commitments that they would be transmitting the benefits to the consumer. Administratively, at the CBIC level and state levels, we will be engaging with the industry,” he said.Businesses will immediately pass on the entire benefits of the proposed Goods and Services Tax rate rationalisation to the consumer, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) director general Chandrajit Banerjee said. “Each rupee of benefit should reach the consumer. CII is quite clear on that,” he added.NAA, which was constituted on November 28, 2017 for a period of two years, started functioning from December 1, 2017. Its tenure was first extended by two years, and later by one more year up to November 30, 2022. From December 1, 2022, NAA’s function was transferred to the Competition Commission of India (CCI). After CCI expressed its inability to handle anti-profiteering cases, the 53rd meeting of the GST Council in June 2024 recommended that starting April 1, 2025, no new anti-profiteering applications would be accepted by CCI. Subsequently, the function was shifted to the principal bench of the GST Appellate Tribunal (GSTAT) from October 1, 2024.While voluntary compliance will enhance ease of doing business, the 56th GST Council also decided to infuse liquidity to businesses through risk-based provisional sanction of refunds arising out of inverted duty structure (IDS), the two officials mentioned at the first instance said. While it recommended amending laws to facilitate such refunds, in the immediate term it asked the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) to administratively start implementation of the revised system. The system will be operationalised from November 1, 2025, they added.The Council also simplified GST registration for small and low-risk businesses through an optional scheme where registration shall be granted on an automated basis within three working days from the date of submission of application, they said. The scheme will also provide for voluntary opting into and withdrawal from the scheme. “This will benefit around 96% of new applicants applying for GST registration,” one of them said, adding that the system will get operationalised from November 1.