Our Correspondent
Lok Sabha today took up the Goods and Services Tax, GST Bills for discussion and passage. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley moved CGST, IGST, UT GST and GST Compensation Bills in the House.
Speaking on the bills, Mr. Jaitley said, the four GST Bills are being taken together as the context is same. He said the current indirect tax regime will be replaced by new mechanism under GST that will be run by new federal system. The CGST Bill makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on intra-state supply of goods or services. The Integrated GST deals in taxation of inter-state movement of goods and services while the Union Territory GST Bill covers taxation in Union Territories.
The Compensation Bill has been prepared to give a legislative backing to the Centre’s promise to compensate the states for five years for any revenue loss arising out of GST implementation. He said, all the bills and tax slabs have been approved by the GST Council through consensus.He said, GST Council is unique example of federal institution where the Centre and States are pooling their sovereignity into it. Government has set a target of first of July for rollout of GST, which will subsume excise, service tax, VAT and and other local levies. Once these Bills are cleared by Parliament, the states will then take the state GST Bill to their respective assemblies. S-GST has been prepared as a model of the central GST, with each state incorporating state-specific exemptions.
Initiating the discussion, M Veerappa Moily of Congress criticised the government’s move and said, the GST bill can not be termed as a game changer. He alleged that the new legislation will lead to tax distortion between the State and Central tax administration. He also alleged that there is no anti-inflationary measures in the bill. Udit Raj of BJP has termed the GST bill as revolutionary in the are of economy. He said, it will lead to put in place one nation- one tax. He said, the prices of commodities will come down after the implementation of the new tax regime.