According to Adhia, petroleum products will gradually be subject to GST

NEW DELHI: Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said on Friday that the all-powerful GST Council would consider introducing petroleum products under the goods and services tax (GST) and that this could be the case. do it in stages. Expressing on the issue, the president of the Central Office of Indirect Taxation and Customs, S Ramesh, said that although there is a demand to bring petroleum products under the GST, the GST Board will finalize the terms and conditions.

At the present time, diesel, gasoline, crude oil, natural gas and aviation turbine fuel do not fall under the goods and services tax, and states have the right to impose the value added tax.

"One of the requirements that comes before us, we will see … everything will happen in stages," Adhia said at an event organized here.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has repeatedly expressed its concern over the high rate of jet fuel taxes, which account for a significant portion of an airline's operating costs and which also have an impact on aviation. on air fares.

Earlier, the Department of Civil Aviation had also written to the Department of Finance asking for the inclusion of jet fuel in the indirect tax system with an input tax credit at the earliest.

The Department of Finance has expressed its intention to soon include natural gas and alternative fuels within the limits of the goods and services tax.

"We have done a lot but that does not mean that there is no room for improvement of the existing system.We still believe that we need to do a lot more and we are working in this direction, "said Adhia.

On the issue of automation of repayments, he said that automation should be automatic from the first day. Unfortunately, people made so many mistakes by stating that the tax department had to switch to manual mode at the last moment.

"We are trying once again to make it fully automatic, the whole process of repayment.It's the next thing.With regard to the simplification of tariffs, slabs, we understand the need, but we did what was best in the given scenario.

"We could not have done anything other than that because we had to take care of the incomes, we had to take care of the poor, and certainly we had to go in that direction of something better than that, "said the secretary.

The GST currently has four tranches – 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent.

In November, the GST Council reduced the tax rate to 178 items from 28 percent to 18 percent.