PM Hopeful Of Breakthrough On GST Bill In Budget Session
The government is looking to roll out GST from July 1.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is hopeful of reaching a breakthrough on the goods and services tax (GST) bill in the Budget session of Parliament that resumed after a month-long break on Thursday.
Modi said all states and political parties have cooperated on GST, billed as the biggest-ever tax reform in the country. The government is looking to roll out the new tax regime from July 1.
The Centre plans to introduce in Parliament the Central GST (CGST) Bill. After it is ratified, the states will introduce the State GST (SGST) Bill in respective legislative Assemblies.
Hoping for a healthy debate in the House, the Prime Minister said, “I believe that the discussion will go to a higher level. Attention will be drawn towards issues related to the poor.”
“We are moving ahead with the consent of all through a democratic process,” he said, hoping that the GST process will be completed before the session concludes next month.
GST is expected to add at least one percentage point to India’s GDP growth. The central and state officials will soon start the exercise to determine which goods and services should fall in which tax bracket. It will be taken to the Council for approval soon.
Together, they will also decide the goods and services that would attract a cess on top of the peak rate to create a corpus that can be used to compensate states for any loss of revenue from implementation of GST in the first five years.
The constitutional amendment that paved the way for GST is due to lapse in mid-September.