Anti-Profiteering — Section 171 of the CGST Act, 2017— DTH Services – This report has been received from the applicant no. 2 i.e. DGAP. The applicant No. 1 filed application before the Standing Committee on Anti-profiteering, against the Direct To Home (DTH) industry in general stating that the tax incidence on DTH services prior to GST implementation was subjected to Entertainment Tax which ranged between 10% to 25% in various States, in addition to 15% Service Tax, whereas on introduction of GST, the tax rate came down to 18%. The Applicant submitted that the benefit of this reduction in the rate of tax was not passed on to the consumers by the DTH operators. The DGAP after investigations, found that the allegations were not correct as there was an increase in the rate of tax charged from the recipients from 15% in the pre-GST era to 18% in the post-GST era. Notwithstanding the issue of change in the content of the package in the post-GST era, the invoices issued by the Respondent revealed that he had kept the prices of the packages unchanged.
Held that:- The Hon’ble Anti-Profiteering Authority observed that there is no evidence to prove that the Respondent had charged more price in the GST era and not passed on the benefit of tax reduction, as the tax rate had increased from 15% to 18% and held that the DGAP has rightly concluded that the allegation of profiteering is not established in the present case.—Navneet Gupta, Director General of Anti-Profiteering, Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs Vs. Bharti Telemedia Pvt. Ltd., Airtel [2019] 13 TAXLOK.COM 011 (NAPA)