Throwing light on one of the most important legislations of the year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said there is only one small issue with regard to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill.
"There is only one issue, which in the larger frame of things, is really a very small issue - You have a pre-existing machinery at the Centre, you have a pre-existing machinery in the state. How is the burden of this assessment going to be shared between the Centre and the states. How we cross-empower the agencies of both, the Centre and the states.though ideally, with a common taxation, it has to lead to a federal bureaucracy, but till such time, because it's still a far cry, how does this sharing take place? There are certain kinds of turf issues involved in it. We are trying to solve it," said Jaitley while speaking at FICCI's 89th general annual meeting.
"Having passed the Constitution Amendment, there are several decisions which the GST council now has to take and these are of very vital interest to India's industry. There are about 10 important decisions which have already been taken all unanimously, by consensus. The legislations which are to be passed now by the parliament under the Constitution Amendment and the state legislatures are currently in the process of being drafted. I don't see any major difficulty in those legislations being finally approved," he said.
Jaitley also informed that as per a notification issued on September 16, 2016, the old taxation regime would continue for a period of one year i.e. till September 16, 2017, after which the curtains would be brought down on it.
Being a transactional tax, GST can come into place at any time during a year. However, Jaitley opined that the sooner they would switch to a new system, the better it would be for the country.
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