When the Goods and Services Tax (GST) came into force on July 1, 2017, it subsumed a host of indirect taxes that were levied. Taxes like Central Excise duty, State VAT, Service tax, luxury tax and others are all gone, which has also led many to question if Budget 2018 would be as exciting as before.

"The expectations from the Budget are relatively subdued because the major portion under indirect tax has gone under GST. But, still on direct tax front and the duty structure under customs or even imports under the FDA route, the Budget has many issues to address for the industry," says Ajay Sahai, Director General &CEO - Federation of Indian Exports Organisation(FIEO).

According to KPMG India, Partner, Priyajit Ghosh, we have become so used to big bang announcements in previous Budgets that this year may prove to be a bit of a dampener. "Now if you look at proposals which are going to be under the GST regime, those are going to be for customs and more procedural in nature. Coming to GST, all the provisions have been the same and the last amendments were made some nine months back. Procedures have changed, but some changes in law are needed and that has not happened," says Ghosh.

He adds that this is may be an opportunity to come to speed or make changes the government has wanted to in GST. "But, I do not think it is going to be as exciting as it used to be because the GST Council has historically proven to be a very porous body, you have tweets coming out as the meeting goes on. First, the GST Council has to say yes to changes, but the biggest part is that every state has to make similar changes in the law. The Centre cannot do it all at its end, except the IGST part," says Ghosh.

However, Deloitte India, Partner, MS Mani differs and thinks it will be a very significant budget. "I do not think it's going to be lackluster in any way for a few reasons. First, in earlier budgets, we used to have a lot of rate changes, but now if you look at indirect rate changes in any case they have tapered down in the last few years because excise has come up to a certain level. Majority of product are at 12.5%, service tax had settled at 15% and so in the last budget rate changes in any case have become minimal," says Mani.

Why it is going to be significant? Mani says this budget is going to culminate all the activities that the GST Council has done in the dozen meetings after the introduction of GST. "Out of 25 meetings, 11 have happened after GST was introduced and many decisions taken in these meetings require a legislative amendment in the CGST Act and IGST, which are to be done in Parliament, and SGST Act which is to be done by each state. And only when the Parliament amends can the states go ahead and make their amendments in March," says Mani.

The last two months have seen a lot changes other than the ones spurred by the GST Council - a law committee was formed, there were industry sectoral committees that were formed for 18 different sectors and very recently there was a mega industry forum where captains of the industry made representations.

"All of these people have been suggesting changes to the government. We have not seen these changes coming on board. Budget is the right time for these changes. The experience of dealing with GST has also taught the lawmakers, tax authorities and the government and having the Budget on February 1 instead of the 28th will give states the time to move amendments on SGST in March. When we have a legislative change of the magnitude of GST and when we have a Budget which follows six months afterthat, it's going to be a busy Budget with lots of changes," says Mani.