GST Council had decided to levy a tax rate of 18 percent on the use of credit cards. (Source: PTI)

GST impact on credit cards: Revenue Secretary Dr Hasmukh Adhia, through a tweet, has clarified that the message spreading on social media that a person would be taxed twice if they make payment using credit cards are false. Doctor Adhia tweeted that there won’t be a case of double taxation in case of payments being made through credit cards. The Revenue Secretary has urged people to not circulate this message or any such message without confirming with the authorities. Doctor Adhia made the statement on Saturday, just a couple of days after the launch of the Goods and Services Tax. The GST Council had decided to levy a tax rate of 18 percent on the use of credit cards. This is an increase of three percent from the previous rate of 15 percent.

As per provisions of the Goods and Services Tax, apart from credit cards, consumers will now also have to pay more for other financial services such as banking services and insurance premium payments. These financial services will attract a tax rate of 18 percent, instead of the 15 percent charged earlier.

Banking services which will require a higher tax rate are, services such as home loan processing fee, fund transfers, debit card, ATM withdrawal beyond the number of free services, issuance of cheque books/drafts/duplicate passbooks, cash handling charges and SMS alerts.

1/2 A wrong message is doing rounds on social media that if u make payment of utility bills by credit cards,you will be paying GST twice. — Dr Hasmukh Adhia (@adhia03) July 2, 2017

The Revenue Secretary is using his Twitter handle as a tool to debunk many myths around the new tax regime, which was launched on Saturday. Adhia has also taken to the micro-blogging site to spread information about the tax.

2/2 This is completely untrue. Please do not recirculate such message without checking it with authority. — Dr Hasmukh Adhia (@adhia03) July 2, 2017

Adhia has tweeted about various other GST topics such as generation of invoices, provisional and final ID, GSTIN, the number of returns to be filed per month, GST rates, etc.