Clearing the ambiguity that existed on the issue, the GST Council said that the services provided by an Indian tour operator to a foreign resident for a tour partially in India and partially outside India
The trade association of inbound tour operators, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO), has said that it was happy with the GST Council’s clarification on the calculation of the tax component on the composite tour packages sold by Indian operators to foreign clients which covers India and other countries in the region, reported ETTravelWorld.
Clearing the ambiguity that existed on the issue, the GST Council said that the services provided by an Indian tour operator to a foreign resident for a tour partially in India and partially outside India, the tax would be proportionate to the tour conducted in India for such foreign tourists, with the condition that the concession did not exceed half of the tour duration.
IATO also welcomed the decision of the GST Council to remove the GST on the ferry services from the mainland to the Andaman Islands, reported ETTravelWorld
Rajiv Mehra, President, IATO, said, “We have been recommending to the Ministry of Finance for the last couple of years in our budget recommendations to remove GST on services provided outside India to foreign tourists if they take a combined package of India and outside India. We thank the government for considering our request favourably and giving clarification.”
IATO also welcomed the decision of the GST Council to remove the GST on the ferry services from the mainland to the Andaman Islands, reported ETTravelWorld.
IATO, however, has asked the government to remove the cascading effect of GST on tour operators. This has been the demand of the sector for a long time. It has asked the government to consider GST on tour operators to be charged on deemed value as in the case of Air Travel Agents, where a deemed value of 10 per cent of gross billing of the tour operator may be considered as the taxable value on deemed basis whereas it is being charged on gross value for tour operators.
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