The four GST bills are-
• GST (Compensation to States) Bill, 2017 provides for a mechanism for making good any loss of revenue of states from introduction of GST in first five years of rollout. As a part of the compensation law, states will receive provisional compensation from Centre for loss of revenue from implementation of GST every quarter.
• Central Goods and Service Tax or CGST bill will amalgamate all the indirect central government levies like sales tax, service tax, excise duty, additional customs duty, special additional duty of customs, surcharges and cesses. CGST provides for a maximum tax of 20%.
• SGST is similar to CGST but it will be levied by states through a separate State-GST law
• Integrated-GST bill to be levied and collected by the Centre on inter-state supply of goods and services. The IGST law provides for a maximum tax of 40%.
There will also be a four-slab structure – 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent – along with a cess on luxury and ‘sin’ goods.
A panel of states and the Centre is working to classify the goods and services according to this slab structure and when implemented GST stitches together a common national market by consolidating a web of local and central taxes into a single levy.