ABOUT GST
GST is abbreviation for Goods and Service Tax. GST is also known as Value Added Tax (VAT) in few countries.
GST / VAT is a consumption based tax wherein the basic principle is to tax the value addition at the each business stage. To achieve this, tax paid on purchases is allowed as a set off/ credit against liability on output/income.
GST is levied on all transaction of goods and services. Thus, in principle, GST should not differentiate between ‘goods’ and ‘services’.
For An Example
Stage 1 (Manufacturer)
Imagine a manufacturer of Trouser . He buys raw material or inputs — cloth, thread, buttons, tailoring equipment — worth Rs 100 a sum that includes a tax of Rs 10. With these raw materials, he manufactures a trouser
In the process of creating the trouser, the manufacturer adds value to the materials he started out with. Let us take this value added by him to be Rs 30. The gross value of his good would, then, be Rs 100 + 30, or Rs 130.
At a tax rate of 10%, the tax on output (trouser) will then be Rs 13. But under GST, he can set off this tax (Rs 13) against the tax he has already paid on raw material/inputs (Rs 10). Therefore, the effective GST incidence on the manufacturer is only Rs 3 (13 – 10).
Stage 2 (Manufacturer to Wholesaler)
The next stage is that of the good passing from the manufacturer to the wholesaler. The wholesaler purchases it for Rs 130, and adds on value (which is basically his ‘margin’) of, say, Rs 20. The gross value of the good he sells would then be Rs 130 + 20 — or a total of Rs 150.
A 10% tax on this amount will be Rs 15. But again, under GST, he can set off the tax on his output (Rs 15) against the tax on his purchased good from the manufacturer (Rs 13). Thus, the effective GST incidence on the wholesaler is only Rs 2 (15 – 13).
Stage 3 (Wholesaler to Retailer)
In the final stage, a retailer buys the trouser from the wholesaler. To his purchase price of Rs 150, he adds value, or margin, of, say, Rs 10. The gross value of what he sells, therefore, goes up to Rs 150 + 10, or Rs 160. The tax on this, at 10%, will be Rs 16. But by setting off this tax (Rs 16) against the tax on his purchase from the wholesaler (Rs 15), the retailer brings down the effective GST incidence on himself to Re 1 (16 –15).
Thus, the total GST on the entire value chain from the raw material/input suppliers (who can claim no tax credit since they haven’t purchased anything themselves) through the manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer is, Rs 10 + 3 +2 + 1, or Rs 16.
