Industry reaction on GST rate

Uday Pimprikar, Tax Partner, EY India: “Imposing 18% tax on telecom is likely to increase the overall tax burden and therefore may have a negative impact on the consumers’ expenses. It needs to be appreciated that telecom is a necessity and an extremely important infrastructure service and resource and thus deserves more sensitive treatment.”

Statement from Sachin Menon, National Head, Indirect Tax, KPMG India: "Under the given circumstances, GST council has done a commendable job by reducing the impact of GST on the common man and maintaining status co on GST rates on the items largely consumed by the upper middle class. It is like a mini budget short of projection of estimated revenue. It is welcome to see that the education and healthcare sector is out of GST and transportation services is taxed at 5%. However telecom services at 18% may touch the raw nerve of the common man, as that is the only significant service that is used by majority of the population in India.”

“As against the expectation of the industry, the increase in the GST rate for telecom and financial services sector from 15% to 18% will increase the cost to the consumer.”

Rajeev Jain, Director and Group CFO, Intex Technologies: "The rates declared are on expected lines except on IT products, which seem to be on the higher side. Clarity is awaited on GST on services and treatment of area based exemptions. Clarity is also required on differential duty on imports and local manufacturing to see the full impact of GST.”