Simplifying GST implementation
"Proposed Simplified GST system features:
1. The existing consulting system with state finance ministers and industry should continue. Action should be taken on recommendations and if any recommendation by anyone is not
accepted, reason must be given and published.
2. The %’s should continue depending on the classification and it should NOT be one % all across the board.
3. These %’s should be based not on sales price alone as of now but on value added by the producer at every stage.
Value added = sales price to the ultimate customer as printed on the package or as announced in the website. minus variable cost for the product that is a constant for the product for one year.
Even the selling price to the ultimate customer must be constant for a year.
Both these – selling price and variable cost – can be revised during a year only if there is a dramatic change in the value added: Dramatic change is + or minus 15%.
Variable cost = raw material cost + sub-contracted cost of labour and bought out components + cost of power or fuel if it is a key component of the cost of manufacturing the product. As variable cost represents actual out-of-pocket expenses in the manufacture of the product, it is easily verifiable and must be tallied with the Income Tax returns of all once a year at least by the GST implementation authorities. Even the authorities cannot harass anyone because the variable costs are supported by bills and payments.
There are only two ways people can evade or reduce GST in this system: 1. Reduce the selling price: this will reduce the turnover which everyone refers whether the company is growing, at standstill or dying! 2. Increase the variable cost: This is difficult as there are solid supporting documents in vogue, can be audited easily and the Income Tax return figure should tally with the total figure of all products manufactured by the company. There is also another check on variable cost: the variable cost for a product is relatively fixed once the quality of the end product is fixed: A high quality product may have 60%, a meduum qualiy product may have 45% and a low quality product 30% for example. So these can be prefixed for a year to be reviewed year after year.
We recommend the gst rates based on value addition to be picked up from the Master file in the cloud once the payer simply selectcs his product name /classification code and quantity. He pays it on line.
He need not have to submit any other statement at all as already the individual transformer by payer is available on the system.
Input credit does not arise at all in this system as input is defined as a % of value added for every product under every classification.
If there is any doubt on gst collection becoming less because of this we can choose a couple of products/classifications and check the tax collected under the present system and this proposed system and adjust the value added to begin with.
There is no need to submit any return monthly, quarterly etc. in this system. Even if required this return could be generated from the online payments made and receipts obtained by the system itself for every payer of GST as often as required by the department or as and when required.
Also there is no need for claiming input credit and so all the consequent malpractices that abound input credit vanish.
Muthuswamy N more