Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced on Thursday that the small businesses taxpayers with an aggregate turnover of Rs 40 lakh would now be exempted from GST, the earlier limit was Rs 20 lakh. For the north-eastern states, the exemption limit has been hiked to Rs 20 lakh from earlier Rs 10 lakh.
It provides a huge relief to small taxpayers, especially micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Under GST composition scheme, the small trader with a turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore (earlier Rs 1 crore) can now pay 1% tax. Free accounting and billing software will be made available, where they have to file just one return annually and pay taxes once every quarter.