The Lok Sabha, on Monday, passed the Goods and Services Tax Bill with all 443 members voting in favour of the bill, ratifying last week’s nod by Rajya Sabha members, who also unanimously passed the amendments to the 122 Constitutional Amendment Bill. The regional parties sought the government’s assurance that it won’t use the new tax regime to compromise the country’s federal structure, and had their concerns duly addressed by the finance minister.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said that “rashtraniti” (national policy) is above rajniti (politics) while expressing gratitude to all parties for support on GST.
After the amendments are carried out, Parliament will pass the GST and Integrated GST Bills and the assemblies will pass state GST Bill for the rollout of the tax reform in the country.
The opposition party said the treasury benches focused only on Rajya Sabha members during consultations for a consensus on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill.
Leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge took a dig at Modi, saying he had opposed the bill as Gujarat Chief Minister.
Needless to say, they would be raking in big moolah for this, which could go up to Rs 500-600 crores in the next one year. It makes sense for the council to accept the Arvind Subramanian panel’s recommendation to have a standard GST rate of 17-18%, computed after excluding real estate, electricity, alcohol and petroleum products.
AIADMK leader M Thambidurai questioned why the GST bill did not have the provision for permanent compensation to states when the Centre was acknowledging that they would lose revenue and hence would be compensated for five years.
“There was a delay, but most of the political parties came on one platform”.
Moily also reiterated the standing demand of the Congress to introduce the GST Bill as a Financial Bill, and not as a Money Bill. As GST is primarily a consumption tax, the first knock every Indian as a consumer will take is on service tax, something that began at a modest 5 per cent, but has been insidiously spreading to more sectors and crept up to a whopping 15 per cent. “We believe, the estimated decrease in the now effective indirect taxes once the GST is finally implemented will drive the next phase of growth in the industry and the benefits of the lower tax rate, which shall be passed on to the customers in the form of reduced prices of the product line, will surely eliminate the current weak demand scenario in the market”.
Moily said the GST should not be in “vested interest” of the Centre and states and that the government should specify the “neutral agent” who will ensure that the common man does not become a casualty of the new indirect tax regime. “But the finance minister said Congress was obstructing progress”, he said.
Initiating a debate on the Bill, Veerappa Moily of the Congress said his party supports the proposed legislation which provides for ushering in a single indirect tax regime across the country by subsuming various taxes. “If the Lt Governor gives his nod to proposal, it will then be tabled in the House for approval”, an official said.
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All these Bills have already been passed by the Lok Sabha.
