The Union Finance Minister also refused to give an assurance on demands put forth by Congress leader P. Chidambaram and others but did give the Rajya Sabha his word that the government will go by the Constitutional provisions and precedents at the time of bringing in the subsequent GST Bills.
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The Constitution (122nd Amendment) (GST) Bill, 2014 was on 3 August 2016 passed by Rajya Sabha to introduce the goods and services tax (GST).
He said the GST would “also be the best example of cooperative federalism” and “together we will take India to new heights of progress”.
Chidambaram batted for 18 per cent GST rate during the debate. The meeting will take place on August 27 in New Delhi. “GST is one of the critical tax reforms which has potential to create one single market in India for goods & services and will boost country’s economy significantly”.
“The industries and the people will get benefit out of the introduction of GST”, he said and requested finance minister Arun Jaitley to address any issues that may arise in exports after implementation of the GST system.
Other than these two impacts, airlines would also need to pay some compliance costs, since the centralised registration system allows them to have one corporate office, while with GST, they would need to register in each state, adding to their costs and paperwork.
Balbir said that while the existing central taxes include Excise Duty, Service Tax and additional customs duties, the state taxes comprise of Entertainment Tax, Luxury Tax, Lottery Tax, Electricity Duty, Sales Tax, Octroi, Value Added Tax (VAT). Finance Minister Jaitley said once the GST rolls out, doing business in India will be easier and help a large body of traders and citizens.
Parliament may, by law, provide for compensation to states for any loss of revenues for a period which may extend to five years.
The subsequent legislations central GST and integrated GST-which are likely to come up for discussion in the winter session of Parliament-would mention the GST rate. “In the coming days, we will try that sooner we complete the roadmap and implement it”, he said.
He stated that the implementation of GST will be the biggest economic reform of this decade.
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“The political maturity demonstrated by both the government and the opposition in forging a consensus for this landmark event is commendable”, said Harishanker Subramaniam, national leader for indirect tax at EY India.
