economic reforms – Arunachal Pradesh PCS Free Notes

Arunachal Pradesh Tax and economic reforms

Major Land Mark Economic Reform Goods and Service tax

The launch of GST on July 1, 2017 was indeed a historic occasion and a paradigm shift as India moved towards ‘One Nation, One Tax, One Market’.

Benefits:

Consumers – Removal of cascading in taxes and efficiency gains will bring down the overall cost paid by consumers.
Trade and Industry –

It will benefit because of uniform single indirect tax throughout the country, seamless flow of input tax credit, removal of tax related barriers ate inter-state borders, reduced logistic costs, end to end IT enabled system and minimal interface with tax authorities.
Exports will become more competitive and Make in India programme will get a major fillip due to increased ease of doing business and protection from cheap imports as all imports will be subject to integrated GST, in addition to the basic custom duty.

Manufacturers – They will be able to take rational decisions with regard to sourcing of raw materials, location of manufacturing and warehousing facilities.
Central and State Governments – Will witness tax buoyancy and the tax collection costs will reduce significantly.
Ease of doing business –

Simpler tax regime with fewer exemption
Reduction in compliance costs – no multiple record keeping for a variety of taxes so lesser manpower needed
Simplified and automated procedures for various processes such as registration, returns, refunds etc.
All interaction to be through the common GSTN portal – minimal public interface between the tax payers and administration
Harmonization of laws, procedures and rates of taxes

Need for Constitutional Amendment:

Indian constitution had clearly demarcated the fiscal powers between Centre and States as per the entries in Union and State list.
Centre – Levy tax on the manufacture of goods (except alcoholic liquor for human consumption, opium, narcotics etc.). Centre, alone, is also empowered to levy service tax.
State – Levy tax on the sale of goods.
In case on inter-state sales, the Centre had power to levy tax (the Central Sale Tax) by the tax was collected and retained entirely by the states.
Amendment concurrently empowered the Centre and States to levy and collect GST.

Journey to launch of GST in India:

The idea of GST was first mooted in 2000 and a committee was set up under the chairmanship of Asim Dasgupta (the then West Bengal Finance Minister).
In 2003, another task force under Vijay Kelkar to recommend tax reforms were formed.
During the presentation of 2006-07 union budget, the govt. proposed to introduce GST from April 1, 2010.
The constitutional amendment (122nd) bill was introduced in 2014 and finally became act in September 2016. It became the 101st Amendment act.

Constitution (101st Amendment) Act 2016:

It empowers both, the Centre and the States, to levy and collect GST.
The GST has been defined as a tax on supply of goods or services or both, except supply of alcoholic liquor for human consumption.
Thus, alcohol for human consumption has been kept out of the GST by way of the definition of GST in the constitution.
On the other hand, five petroleum products viz. petroleum crude, motor spirit (petrol), high speed diesel, natural gas and aviation turbine fuel have temporarily been kept out and GST council would decide the date from which they shall be inducted in GST.
Inter-State supply of goods and services (Integrated GST, IGST) would be levied and collected by Centre. It will ensure that the GST is truly destination based consumption tax and there is seamless flow of input tax credit, even when goods and services are moving from one state to another state.

The GST Council of Arunachal Pradesh Tax and economic reforms:

The guiding principle of the GST Council is to ensure harmonization of different aspects of GST between the Centre and the States as well as among States with a view to develop a harmonized national markets for goods and services within India.

Chairperson – Union FM,
Vice Chairperson – to be chosen amongst the ministers of State Govt.
Members – MOS (Finance) and all Ministers of Finance/Taxation of each state
Quorum – 50% of total members
States – 2/3 weightage and Centre – 1/3 weightage
Decision by 75% majority (the weightage of voting has been so assigned that it is not possible for either the Centre or the states to take any decision unilaterally)

However, till now all the decisions in the council have been taken by consensus and there has not been any occasion for voting.
The difficult issue of cross empowerment and administrative division of tax payers between the states and center was resolved in a true spirit of give and take.
Council to make recommendations on everything related to GST including laws, rules and rates etc.
The newly created constitutional body, the GST Council, has emerged as a new model of cooperative federalism, where the centre and the states are willing to share and pool in their sovereignty and give fiscal space to each other.

Compensation to the Arunachal Pradesh Tax and economic reforms:

As GST is a destination based tax, there was an apprehension that many manufacturing states might lose revenue after implementation of GST.
Hence, the act provides for the compensation to the States for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of GST for a period of 5 years.
The compensation act has fixed the revenues of the year 2015-16 as the base year revenues and further a nominal annual growth rate of 14% has been provided.
The Act provides for levying of a cess, which shall be used for compensation to the states in case there is loss of revenue. This cess shall be levied on luxury items and goods.

Deciding Tax Rates of Arunachal Pradesh Tax and economic reforms:

While deciding tax rates, the council has tried to achieve balance between three objective:
To ensure that interests of poor and vulnerable sections of the society are protected and goods of mass consumption and essential commodities remain at affordable level.
To ensure that the overall revenues of the States and the Centre are protected.
To see that the tax incidence on the goods and services does not increase or decrease substantially from the present incidence of tax.
Hence four tax rates of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% slabs have been decided.

Supporting Medium and Small Enterprises:

The law provides for an exemption threshold where by it is not mandatory for a business whose aggregate turnover in a financial year is less than Rs. 20 lakh ( Rs. 10 lakh for special category states) to register.
There is also a composition scheme under which an eligible registered person, whose aggregate turnover in preceding financial year did not exceed Rs. 75 lakhs can opt to file summarized returns on a quarterly basis.
The taxpayers dealing in goods and restaurant sector can only opt for the composition
Under the composition scheme, the manufacturer will pay tax at the rate of 1%, restaurant sector @ 2.5% and traders @ 0.5% of the turnover each under CGST act and SGST act.
However, the service providers and the tax payers making inter-state supplies or making supplies through e-commerce operators are not eligible for composition scheme.

Tracking Tax leakages and Corruption:

The mechanism of matching of invoices will ensure that the input tax credit of purchased goods and services will only be available if the taxable supplies received by the buyers get matched against the taxable supplies received by the suppliers.
The GST Network is responsible for the IT backbone and is geared to generate more than 3 billion invoices per month.
It will check tax frauds, tax evasion and would bring more and more businesses into formal economy.
Tax payers can register, file returns and make payment of taxes on a single portal on the
Even in rare case, if the tax payer is to interact with the tax authorities, he will have to interact with only one authority either from the State govt. or from the Central govt.

Conclusion:

The launch of GST is a transformative reform and will change the way businesses are done in India. Radical change of this magnitude is bound to bring about some pain bu the gains of little pain are going to be many and long lasting for the Indian economy.

Main Features of Arunachal Economy

Introduction

The economy of Arunachal Pradesh is predominantly agrarian. Agriculture and allied activities have overriding importance as a source of livelihood to the people of Arunachal Pradesh.
The State’s economy is characterized by persistent stringent financial situation marked by a very low level of State’s own resources co-existing with high level of borrowing.
The State has been suffering from impaired economic development due to bottlenecks in development of roads, civil aviation etc. in terms of per capita State Domestic Product and other development indices such as power, road length, Arunachal Pradesh ranks below national average.
Arunachal Pradesh is one of the Special Category States and is largely dependent on Central Assistance for Plan investment as the scope of internal mobilization of resources is limited in Arunachal Pradesh in view of low tax base. Therefore, the prime mover of the growth of the economy has been the flow of funds from the Centre.
The relatively isolated economies of the tribal communities of the area, which were later reorganized as Arunachal Pradesh, were gradually integrated into the larger economy only after independence, and more particularly after the Indo-China war of 1962. Apart from the relatively late exposure to modernization, another specificity of the historical transformation of the Arunachal economy was the role of the State as the prime mover in this process of gradual transformation and integration of the economy.
Arunachal Pradesh has now witnessed remarkable social and economic changes within a comparatively short period of time. The State’s economy has not only experienced a remarkable growth over the past decades, it has diversified from agriculture and forestry based subsistence economy into a market economy.
In 1970-71 the per capita Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) of Arunachal Pradesh was 56.14 percent of the per capita national income. Starting from a very low base, Arunachal’s per capita income increased at a faster rate than the country’s national income.
The predominantly barter economies are in the process of being transformed into a monetized economy. The market institutions are still underdeveloped in many respects, and there is a great deal of regional variations in the degree of integration with the market economy.
There is a significant change in terms of land tenure system, which is steadily leading to individual ownership by making collective ownership (clan, village, community ownership) a marginal phenomenon. In urban or semi-urban areas, land became a commodity for earning cash and ‘brewing social conflicts’
Subsistence nature of farming coupled with modern consumption structure is the driving force behind the changing economic institutions in Arunachal Pradesh. The rural urban migration, due to pull factors in the state, has resulted in substantial increase in employment in service sector. Thus, the process of modernization has led to the transformation of the traditional economic institutions in the State.
In the context of Arunachal Pradesh, power sector is the most vital infrastructure input for socio- economic development and has assumed centre stage because of huge hydropower potential.
At the time of independence there were less than 100 km. of dirt roads. At the time attaining statehood in 1987 the total road length was only 3419 km and today it stands at 21066.36 km i.e., 25.16 km/ 100 sq. km a quantum jump in progress.
The prospect of creating an industrial base in the state seems daunting in the light of the ecological and economic specificities of the state. However, a carefully designed strategy for establishing specific industries having strong forward and backward linkages has been envisaged in the New Industrial Policy-2008 of the State.

Economic Reforms

The Government of Arunachal Pradesh has been pursuing economic reforms for speedy development. There has been a significant fiscal correction in the last couple of years. Major reforms initiated by the State are

The State has taken various measures to curtail non-plan and unproductive expenditure and to increase State’s Own tax and non-tax revenue. The State’s own tax which was around Rs. 37.00 crore has now jumped to above Rs.80 crore this year. Because of various initiatives in development of hydropower, mines and minerals etc. The non-tax revenue is also increasing substantially.
The State Govt. has enacted the ‘Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act 2006’ and in accordance the ‘Arunachal Pradesh Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Rule 2007’ have been framed to ensure prudence in fiscal management.
Mobilization of State’s own resource is pre-requisite for financing the annual plan. The Finance Department is in constant touch with revenue generating departments and monitoring meticulously for greater revenue generation.
The gross fiscal deficit which was at 13.85% of GSDP in 2004-05 has been reduced to 3.57 in 2007-08. • Serious restrictions have been put for the non-developmental expenditure including the post creation. • The Plan schemes are now being executed in Project Mode with the introduction of the concept of non-divertible earmarked allocation. The State Govt. has constituted very high level committee under the Chairmanship of the Chief Secretary to scrutinize the project proposals.
The State Govt. has notified “Hydro Electric Power Policy 2008” to accelerate investments in development of hydro power projects having installed capacity above 25 MW. The Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh had also announced “Small Hydro Power Policy 2007“for small hydro power projects upto an installed capacity of 25 MW.
The State PWD has reduced its manpower by 7000 Nos. through VRS. It will lead a saving of Rs. 30.00 crore per year. Other departments with surplus man-power are also working out the modalities.
To minimize the burden of committed liabilities of salary, Government of Arunachal Pradesh has transferred 13265 Nos. Plan posts of 37 Nos. departments from 7th Five Year Plan onwards during Annual Plan 2008-09 in the first phase. Transfer of remaining 8 Nos departments as well as committed liabilities of 8 departments will be taken care in the second phase during Annual Plan 2009-10. As a result provision Direction and Administration has been reduced to 27.69% during 2008-09 compared to 44.14% during Annual Plan 2007-008.