The Rajasthan Assembly on Friday unanimously ratified the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Constitution (122nd) Amendment Bill 2016 here.
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With Odisha approving the constitution amendment at a special assembly session today, 50 per cent of the states have ratified the GST bill.
After Parliament passed the Constitution Amendment Bill on August 8, as many as 16 states, starting with Assam, have ratified the Bill.
Participating in the debate, Congress member K. Lakshminarayanan said the territorial administration should get it clarified from the Centre whether there would be a loss that would accrue to the UT exchequer by joining the GST regime.
The Haryana Government has made a decision to constitute a task force for the successful implementation of all aspects of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the State.
The House adopted a resolution tabled by Chief Minister V Narayanasamy for ratification of the bill, seen as the single biggest tax reform in decades.
The GST Council will decide on the tax rate, cess and surcharges which are to be subsumed and also decide on the goods and services which would be exempted from the purview of the new indirect tax regime. Speaking on the occasion, AIADMK legislature party leader A Anbazhagan said that already the Union territory was severely hit by opening a separate account with the Reserve Bank of India. He said it seemed that the resolution was brought in a haste by the government and added that the Union Territory will be severely affected because of GST.
All the eight members of opposition AINRC were also not present as they boycotted the Assembly proceedings since Wednesday last.
Meanwhile, at a meeting here with the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST on Monday, India Inc. pitched for an 18 per cent standard rate.
Service Tax Chief Commissioner (Kolkata) S K Panda said concerns should be pointed out quickly to the government so that those can be taken into consideration when the final legislation is drafted.
After the Chief Minister’s reply, Speaker V Vaithilingam announced that the resolution was passed “unanimously”.
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“We have taken care that the GST Bill does not inflict any hardship on Puducherry”, Narayanaswamy said.
