Kolkata, The West Bengal government has, for the time being, shelved the plan to discuss the GST (Goods and Services Tax) Constitution Amendment Bill in the ongoing special assembly session that began on Friday, a ruling legislator said.
Advertisement
The Advocate General will attend the session as a special invitee in order to clear doubts of the members, if any, on the legislation.
So far, three non-BJP led governments and a total of eight states have passed the GST Constitution Amendment Bill.
Parliamentary secretaries Er. Levi Rengma and Hukavi voiced concern whether it would benefit a consumer State like Nagaland and also if the Tax Department is equipped to handle the complexities of the matter.
He said the Bill passed by the Parliament contains provision for consideration of special status states like Nagaland. He said there was a substantial parentage of payment of taxes online already.
Sena has reservations in particular about the compensation to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) which would be losing Rs 7,500-crore octroi annually, largely from the the imported crude oil, after GST rolls out.
The speaker also clarified that the GST was related to tax laws.
The Assembly session is being conducted as Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently asked Telangana Government to pass the GST bill and support it at national level. However, he added that all indirect taxes would get unified under the GST regime.
Sources said that the government was confident that over 16 states would give their nod for the Constitutional Amendment Bill within the next 15 days. Subsequently GST act and rules would be framed and would have to be passed by the parliament as well as the state legislature before GST was affected, Sazo said.
Therefore, Sazo said that the document in the public domain was just the “model GST law” seeking comments from stakeholders. Hence, it was felt not necessary to place the draft laws before this august House during the current session.
Advertisement
Later, the NLA Speaker adjourned the house sine-die after obituary reference was made to the passing away of former MLA Y. Shangyu, report to the assent of Governor on two bills and laying of the service rules of the Veterinary & Animal Husbandry Department.
