PK Das, chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), on Tuesday said compliance, expansion of revenue and enforcement will be the future challenges for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Das said reduction in tax rates and rationalisation increased the compliance rate and the next three months would be an interesting period.

S Ramesh, the outgoing chairman of CBIC, said he was sanguine that the GST collections would pick up in the coming months, "There could be some shortfall, but every effort is being made to bridge the shortfall in terms of compliance improvement and in terms of tax payer facilitation."

The board is also looking to get tax payers sitting on the fence to come into mainstream, join the formal economy and start paying taxes, Ramesh said to CNBC-TV18.

Mahendra Singh, outgoing GST member, said rate rationalisations is a constant exercise and they are in the final stages of that, "Most of the items have now gone from 28 percent to 18 percent to 12 percent. Concerns raised by various state governments over rationalisations are genuine."

"Very soon the board will come out with the final restructure of GST and as finance minister said, ultimately 18 and 12 percent will merge somewhere in between," Singh said.

First Published:Jan 1, 2019 3:07 PM IST