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Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary has said that the recent revision in Goods and Services Tax (GST) rates is expected to further boost government's revenue collections. A 5 per cent GST was levied on curd, paneer, honey, wheat jaggery, puffed rice (muri), among others, effective July 18, 2022.  In addition, hotel rooms with tariff of up to Rs 1,000/day, maps and charts, including atlases, will attract 12 per cent GST, while 18 per cent GST has been levied on tetra packs and fees charged by banks for the issue of cheques (loose or in book form).

The minister said GST collections in the first quarter of 2022-23 registered a growth of 36.4 per cent compared to the corresponding period of the previous year indicating a stronger revenue position of the government. In the first year after introduction, GST revenues started flowing in from August, 2017. On a like to like basis, the GST revenue for the period August-March grew by 44 per cent from 2017-18 to 2021-22. As compared to this, the nominal GDP of 2021-22 has seen a growth of 36 per cent over 2017-18.

Chaudhary said the government, on the recommendations of the GST Council, has taken several measures for reforms in GST, including structural changes like calibration of rates for correcting inverted duty structure and pruning of exemptions. These also include measures for improving tax compliance such as mandating e-way bill, input tax credit matching, mandating e-invoice, deployment of artificial intelligence and machine-based analytics, Aadhaar authentication for registration, calibrated action on non-filers, targeted assessment based action on risky taxpayers, and integration of e-way bill with FASTag.