NEW DELHI: Did you ever imagine that a delay in the goods and services tax ( GST) is making you pay more for your services and cars? Well, the answer is yes.

Talking to HT in an exclus ive i nterview, revenue s ecretary Hasmukh Adhia said a r e p r i eve f r o m c e s s e s wil l come through once GST kicks in.

“First, cesses are for specific pur poses. Second, under t he new regime of GST, there will not be any cesses,” Adhia said.

However, he did mention that the gover nment will continue to hold power to i ntroduce a cessduring t he GST re gime but it will then come through only after the approval of the GST council which comprises s t a t e f i n a n c e mi n i s t e r s a s well.

Explaining the logic behind i n t r o d u c i n g t wo n e w t a x e s and making an additional burden through the clean energy cess, Adhia said, “Since once GST comes in there will be no disinvestment exercise. The government has already approved the strategic sale policy. We haverevenue from dividend payments — now everybody will have to pay 30% dividend and there is ` 20,000 crore as spectrum licence fee which is an annual affair. Another ` 55,000 crore is expected to come from auction of leftover spectrum,” he said.

Das said the budget focused on the “real problem areas” of the economy, which include agriculture and rural sector. “It may not sound fashionable to market analysts but addressing this sector is the most urgent need,” he added. cesses, this was the only year when there was a small chance of additional mobilisation of resources through taxes to raise money for specific pur poses such as for f ar mers t hrough the Krishi Kalyan cess, clean energ y cess for environment a nd i nf r a s t r uc t ure c e s s f o r building traffic-free roads and for a pollution- f ree environment.”

Mea n wh i l e, h e a l s o s a i d the tax department will soon come up with a study to assess the inflationary impact of the implementation of GST.

It is being contemplated that once GST kicks in, for the first few years, tax payers will have to pay more, leading to an additional burden on the common man.

    On tax being imposed i n the budget on the super rich, Adhia s a i d t he g over nment had a choice to either increase the direct tax burden for all or only for those who can af ford to pay it.