Budget 2021-22: Record GST collections made in last few months: FM Sitharaman

New Delhi: On the issue of Indirect Tax proposals, Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech on Monday said record Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections have been made in the last few months.

With an aim to rationalise custom duty structure, ease compliance and give impetus to domestic manufacturing, the Union Budget 2021-22 has several indirect tax proposals.

Ms Sitharaman tabled the Union Budget 2021-22 in Parliament today. 

In her budget speech, she said several measures have been taken to further simplify the GST. The capacity of GSTN system has been announced.  Deep analytics and Artificial Intelligence have been deployed to identify tax evaders and fake billers, launching special drives against them. 

The Finance Minister assured the House that every possible measure will be taken to smoothen the GST further and remove anomalies such as the inverted duty structure.

On the issue of custom duty policy, the Finance Minister said that it has the twin objectives of promoting domestic manufacturing and helping India get on to global value chain and export better. 

She said the thrust now has to be on easy access to raw materials and exports of value added products.     

In this regard, she proposed to review 400 old exemptions in the custom duty structure this year. 

She announced that extensive consultation will be conducted and from October 1, a revised custom duty structure free of distortions will be put in place.

She also proposed that any new custom duty exemptions henceforth will have validity upto to March 31 following 2 years of the date of its issue. 

The Finance Minister announced withdrawal of a few exemptions on parts of chargers and sub-parts of mobiles.

Further, some parts of mobiles will move from “NIL” rate to a moderate 2.5 per cent.

She announced reducing custom duty uniformly to 7.5 per cent on semis, flat, and long products of non-alloy, alloy and stainless steel. 

The Minister proposed exempting duty on steel scrap for a period upto March 31, 2022.

Ms Sitharaman also revoked ADD and CVD on certain steel products.

She announced deduction in duty on copper scrap from 5 per cent to 2.5 per cent. 

Mentioning about the need to rationalise duty on raw material inputs to man-made textile, the Finance Minister announced bringing nylon chain on par with polyester and other man-made fibers.

Announcing uniform deduction of the BCD rates on caprolactam, nylon chips and nylon fiber and yarn to 5 per cent, the Minister said this will help the textile industry, MSMEs and exports too. 

She also announced calibration of customs duty rate on Chemicals to encourage domestic value addition and to remove inversions. 

The Minister also announced rationalisation of custom duty on gold and silver.

The Finance Minister said a phased manufacturing plan for solar cells and solar panels will be notified to build up domestic capacity. 

She announced raising duty on solar inverters from 5 per cent to 20 per cent and on solar lanterns from 5 per cent to 15 per cent. (UNI)