AMN
The Cabinet today cleared four supporting Goods and Services Tax legislations, paving the way for their introduction in Parliament soon. The legislations were cleared at a Cabinet meeting in New Delhi. The supporting legislations — the Compensation Law, the Central-GST (C-GST), Integrated-GST (I-GST) and Union Territory-GST (UT-GST) — would be introduced as Money Bill.
Once approved by Parliament, the states would start taking their State-GST (S-GST) bill for discussion and passage in the respective state assemblies.
The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST bill. While the S-GST has to be passed by each of the state legislative assemblies, the four other laws have to be approved by Parliament.
The CGST Bill makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on intra-state supply of goods or services for both by the Central Government. On the other hand, IGST Bill provides for levy and collection of tax on inter-state supply of goods or services or both by the Central Government. The UTGST Bill makes provisions for levy on collection of tax on intra-UT supply of goods and services in the Union Territories without legislature.
Union Territory GST is akin to States Goods and Services Tax (SGST) which shall be levied and collected by the States and Union Territories on intra-state supply of goods or services or both. The Compensation Bill provides for compensation to the states for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of the goods and services tax for a period of five years.
Passage of all the legislations would pave the way for introduction of GST from 1st July this year. The Finance Minister in his Budget Speech had mentioned that country-wide outreach efforts will be made to explain the provisions of GST to Trade and Industry.