In a bid to promote ease of doing business, the state government of Maharashtra has made several changes in the Goods and Services Tax (GST) reforms for the first time since its inception, said an official.
The changes are most likely to come into effect from October 1. As discussed in the GST Council’s meeting last week, the state government Wednesday brought in 31 reforms in the state GST structure to promote ease of doing business.
The state’s rank has slipped down to 13th in the Centre’s ranking as per the report released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in July. It secured 10th position in the previous year.
According to the finance ministry official, hotels, restaurants and traders will now see faster processing of refunds, as the actual processing would initiate from the date of its filing, rather than March 31 of every fiscal earlier.
“There are sizeable number of traders who file their tax on a monthly or quarterly basis. The process of refunds as per the existing rules begins from March 31 and the period for refunds stretches to two years,” the official said.
“The GST council has decided to initiate the refund processing from the date of filing of tax returns. It will save the waiting period of the traders for their refunds,” the official revealed.
As per the earlier regulations, companies having their units in special economic zones (SEZs) as well as outside them only had one GST number. However, the companies in SEZ can now opt for separate GST registration numbers, which will make the processing of taxes easier for the authorities as well as for the filing companies, the official said.
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