Petrol & Diesel Won’t Be Included Under GST [Quick Report]

The most awaited decision of putting petrol and diesel under the GST slab may not be implemented anytime soon in India. The report comes after both central and state govt showed fear of losing a considerable amount of revenue and did not favor the one nation, one tax policy. GST was implemented in 2017 from July 1, completing one full year of ups and downs last month.

Many industries received benefits from its implementation while others showed how they were badly hit by the change in tax policy. GST basically combines value added tax, service tax and excise duty, dividing products into four slabs of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. Most everyday products fall in the first two segments while availing services from most sources are taxed under the 18% slab.

Automobile sector falls under the 28% segment, further getting higher tax rates by including additional cess on these base values. The biggest example is the above 4-meter car segment, paying 53% of total tax with 25% of cess on the base value. Most experts were believing the fact that the government will tax petrol and diesel under the 28% slab with a bigger cess than that seen on the car market.

One such example of huge taxation is the tobacco industry, paying 160% of cess over the regular 28% taxation. Presently, petroleum products and alcohol are the only industries that are out of the GST regime. The highest amount of VAT charged on petrol is in Mumbai whereas all UTs have the lowest taxation on petroleum products.

GST was a brilliant idea of bringing things under one umbrella but, the application of cess on the ground values have disturbed many industries. For some, the values remain identical as government played safe by putting a similar amount of GST as the total of earlier taxes, which also includes cess.