On the first death anniversary of former Union minister Arun Jaitley, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday paid tributes to the late BJP leader by recounting the benefits of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the single tax regime introduced during Jaitley's tenure as the finance minister. In a series of tweets, her ministry said that GST has reduced the tax rate, helped increase compliance and doubled taxpayer base to 1.24 crore. The ministry said that before the GST, the combination of value-added tax (VAT), excise, sales tax and their cascading effect resulted in high standard rate of tax up to 31 per cent.
"Common-use items such as hair oil, toothpaste & soap have seen their tax rates come down from 29.3% in the pre-GST era to just 18% under GST."Tax on cinema tickets, earlier between 35% to 110%, has been brought down to 12% & 18% in GST regime. Most items of daily use are in 0 or 5% slab. Construction of residential complexes saw a steep reduction in rates to 5% in general & 1% for affordable houses," the ministry said. Businesses with an annual turnover of up to Rs 40 lakh are GST exempt. Initially, this limit was Rs 20 lakh. Additionally, those with a turnover up to Rs 1.5 crore can opt for the Composition Scheme and pay only 1 per cent tax.