GST Rules for decriminalising offences soon: Tarun Bajaj

Revenue Secretary Tarun Bajaj has said the government will soon come out with norms for decriminalising offences under Goods & Services Tax (GST). In an interview, on being asked on question related to GST and windfall gain tax, he talks about the compounding of offences. The government recently comes out with revised guidelines for compounding offences under Direct Taxes. Earlier, a similar arrangement was made in case of customs duty-related offences.

On this, Tarun Bajaj said that we are working a plan for decriminalisation of offences under GST and soon we will release (the document). We would move in the same direction as we moved on the custom side and direct taxes side. We are not interested in people into jail.

What we want is that if we can compound, if there has been a mistake on the part of a corporation or a person, let them pay the money with penalty and move on or compound the offence and move on.

This is very essential and now we are increasing our compliance and once you do that people also realise they can’t getaway. They want to come out clean. This is another way of people coming out clean.

On the discussion about that new regime would give lesser revenue to the government, he said that we have done a very rough estimate. We feel that to start with, we might be neutral but over a period of time, we will gain because now the market economy is the norm.

Our middle class is growing. Our incomes are rising. We will consume more products of these companies and in that sense, our tax growth rate will be much higher. So, to start with, we might be breaking even but over a period of time we will keep getting more money through this process.