GST rate should not be too high, says state Finance Minister

West Bengal Finance Minister and chairman of Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST Amit Mitra said the rate of tax which would be levied was not a part of the Constitutional amendment bill.

“What would be the level of tax? The idea is to have a tax that does not result in inflationary pressures on the common people,” Mitra said at the Ficci Banking Conclave on Wednesday. Mitra said, “The rate should be such that it is neither too low or too high” and added that the level of the tax rate would not be discussed at the debate on the Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, 2014.

Mitra, the chairman of the empowered committee of state finance ministers’ vehemently clarified that the state is looking to GST, which would support the common people. As it provides a single tax facility, common people should expect benefits from it along with big and small businesses.

“GST should provide benefit to micro, small and medium enterprises. State government is supporting the GST for paving the way for small traders to get the single tax facility. Mamata Banerjee has been talking about this since 2009, when she was the railway minister. The big businessmen can manage multiple taxes, but it was quite a tough task for the small traders,” Mitra said.

“You can see that MSMEs is actually a subsidiary industry to the big and heavy industries and most of the labours work there,” said Mitra adding 94 per cent of employment generation comes from MSME. The Centre has already said that it would recompense states’ revenue loss for a period of five years. “The dual control would be permitted to entities which have an annual turnover more than Rs 1.5 crore. Small players with less than Rs 1.5 crore annual turnovers will be in state’s control only. However the constitutional amendment bill for the GST was passed in Rajya Sabha, on Wednesday.

However, Mitra has placed a glorious picture of the state government saying, the debt GDP ratio has come down for West Bengal. The fiscal deficit has also come down. We have achieved better economic growth as the revenue deficit has also come down. Now in this state, we can witness a sustainable growth,” he said.