From a place of supply perspective, the determination of place of supply of B2B services (under the standard rule) basis location of the recipient of service is overall a welcome move from an ease of business perspective.

As we are steadily climbing notches in the ladder of ease of doing business, a much-needed push to the manufacturing sector is important to sustain and promote an all-inclusive growth.

With the current impediments that the government is grappling with on GST, there is still much that government can do to bring the current indirect tax structure closer to GST.

The IT/ITeS sector, one of the largest contributors to exports in the country, has played a vital role in shaping the overall growth story of India. In view of the challenging business environment, the sector has significant expectations from the ensuing Union Budget 2016 on the tax and policy initiatives front.

While modalities for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation are being worked upon, the Union Budget 2016/17 provides an excellent opportunity to the Finance Minister to rationalise as well as iron out the inconsistencies in the existing CENVAT credit scheme.

\"World market has shrunk. Devaluation of Yuan has impacted our competitiveness. Even Russian and Brazilian markets are shrinking. We need immediate support,\" SC Ralhan, president, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) says.

Central Board of Direct Taxes chairperson Anita Kapur has directed top officials of the I-T department to tackle grievances of taxpayers.

The government should act on the following suggestions to create a healthy business environment and efficient administrative machinery.

The recent amendments to the indirect-tax laws have further added to the already unresolved challenges faced by the IT industry.

The Acchhe Din Lanewali Sarkar must be aiming at bringing out some big-ticket changes in this Budget that would bring a feel-good feeling to industry without disturbing the deficit calculations of the finance minister.

The surge in e-filing has also helped the growth of a number of efiling websites because even though e-filing has seen a sharp rise, experts point out that many people remain unsure about the laws and the actual procedure.

Pratik Jain, Partner at KPMG India, says one could expect the upcoming budget to take us closer to GST, even though the exact date of implementation is still likely to be a moving target.

Zensar Technologies Vice Chairman & CEO Ganesh Natarajan says the government must not take any step in the budget that would hamper sentiment and nail down the recovery.

The new Direct Taxes Code and the Goods and Services Tax, both of which are set to transform the direct and indirect tax structure.

Whether GST is implemented in 2010 or gets delayed further, the momentum seems to be building irreversibly towards its introduction. This would be by far the biggest story on the indirect tax front.

One year of GST: Report card of India's biggest tax reform