The Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) set up working groups to address concerns raised by trade and industry and facilitate a smooth transition to the goods and services tax (GST).

Ten working groups have been set up to address issues related to banking, financial services and insurance sector; telecommunication; exports; information technology; transport and logistics; textiles; micro, small and medium enterprises; oil and gas; gems and jewellery; and government services.

These working groups will address questions related to procedural simplification and possible rate structure. They have been asked to submit their reports by 10 April.

Some of the issues raised by industry that these working groups will address include compliance challenges for small and medium sector in an automated environment with end-to-end matching of invoices and cascading effect due to exclusion of certain industries and clauses in the production-sharing contracts.

These working groups will also address issues related to exports and special economic zones, taxability of government services, taxation of the country’s critical infrastructure and abatements provided to the transportation sector.

They will also look at how to handle instances in some sectors where services are provided between establishments of the same entity without invoice or payment with high volumes of transactions for operations spread on a countrywide basis.