By Mohammed Kudrati
A viral Facebook post falsely claims that the government has levied Goods and Services Tax (GST) on public toilets. The viral post carries a screenshot of a receipt claiming it shows one additional rupee over and above the usage charges (₹5) applied on a public toilet at a Punjab government bus stand as GST.
BOOM found that the receipt in the screenshot is old and from August 2017, a month after the GST regime came into force, and has been debunked then by the Punjab authorities. BOOM also looked through the Ministry of Finance's GST database and found that services for public convenience like washrooms and toilets have no GST levied on it.
The post can be seen below. It is being revived with the context of the recent hikes in the rates of GST on certain crucial goods and services, like pre-packaged and pre-labelled food items and hospital beds.
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FactCheck
BOOM looked through the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs' database on GST rates and found that there is a nil tax rate under GST on toilets, washrooms, lavatories and urinals, collectively termed under "services by way of public conveniences".
It can be found here (users would have to search using keywords like "toilets", "bathroom" or "washroom").
The screenshot, showing nil taxes on the provision of these items can be found below.
Screenshot from the GST website
Further, this claim has already been debunked in 2017 itself.
Officials from the Ludhiana also told the Indian Express in 2017 that this post in untrue. They only charged ₹2 for the use of the toilet while using the urinal was free, with no GST being imposed. This can be read here.
Screenshot of the Indian Express article published in 2017
Gursewak Singh Rajpal, general manager Ludhiana bus stand from PUNBUS told the Indian Express, "No such receipt is being issued by us. There is no GST on toilets usage", he is quoted saying.
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