Congress dubs GST overhaul as ‘GST 1.5’

New Delhi: With the GST Council approving a complete overhaul of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, the Congress on Thursday termed it a “GST 1.5” and said the wait for a “true GST 2.0” continues.

The opposition party also demanded that all states should be given compensation for a period of five years, considering 2024-25 as the base year, citing that the reduction in rates would have an adverse effect on their revenue.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that for almost a decade, the party has been demanding simplification of GST. “The Modi government changed ‘One Nation, One Tax’ to ‘One Nation, 9 Taxes’. It included tax slabs of 0%, 5%, 12%, 18%, 28% and special rates of 0.25%, 1.5%, 3% and 6%,” Kharge said. “The Congress party had demanded GST 2.0 with a simple and rational tax system in its 2019 and 2024 manifestos. We had also demanded simplification of the complex compliances of GST, which had badly affected MSMEs and small businesses.”

On February 28, 2005, the Congress-UPA government formally announced GST in the Lok Sabha, he said. In 2011, when the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee brought the GST Bill, the BJP opposed it, Kharge said.