Govt determined to roll out GST by April 1: FM Jaitley

The Central Government is working on a target date of April 1, 2017 for the roll out of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) in the country. 

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that till September 16, 2017, that is one year after the provisions of the Constitution (101st Amendment) Act, 2016 being brought into force, the Constitution empowers the Central Government to levy excise duty on manufacturing and service tax on the supply of services.

He added that similarly the Constitution Amendment Act empowers the state governments to levy sales tax or Value Added Tax (VAT) on the sale of goods till September 16, 2017.

“So far the Government is following the road map for implementation of GST as per the schedule,” said Finance Minister while addressing the fourth meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to Finance Ministry held here on Friday.

The Finance Minister Jaitley further said that soon hold the second meeting of the GST Council. In the GST regime, the GST Council has been created under Article 279A of the Constitution. The GST Council is a joint forum of the Centre and the States. The Council will take decisions on important issues like tax rates, exemption list and threshold limits etc.

Thereafter, the Members of Consultative Committee who participated in today’s meeting sought various clarifications with regard to GST Law and gave suggestions for its better implementation. 

Some of the major suggestions include need for absolute clarity and transparency with regard to where taxes will be collected, assessed and where the appeal will be filed in case of GST regime. 

The members said that it will be challenging task to tackle complex situation arising-out of implementation of GST law in a federal system. Some of the members suggested there is a need for launching a large scale Awareness Campaign especially for the small traders.