April 2017 Implementation Tough As Winter Session To Leave GST Bills In The Cold
Certain clauses of the central and states GST Bill will be redrafted says Arun Jaitley
The Goods and Services Tax Bills can not be tabled in the ongoing winter session of Parliament. The GST Council which met for the sixth time on Sunday, will continue deliberation on the Central and State GST Bills in its next meeting, which has now been deferred to December 22. The winter session of Parliament ends on December 16.
Tomorrow’s meeting has been postponed as ministers wanted to be present at their respective constituencies on the occasion of Eid, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after the Council meeting got over.
The centre and the states are yet to reach a consensus on the dual control issue, which did not even come up for discussion on Sunday, which means that there may be further delay, as the centre and the states are still sparring over jurisdiction.
Answering a query on whether the new indirect tax regime would be implemented by April 1, 2017, Jaitley said that "We stand by the April 1, 2017 target of implementing GST. We do not have the discretion of time as we have just 5 months 16 days before the curtains draw on the old taxation rules."
State finance ministers though accept that meeting the April 1, 2017 deadline will be an uphill task, with so much still pending. West Bengal finance minister, Amit Mitra told reporters that there’s still a lot of ground to cover before the GST Council approves the legislation.