The country is slowly moving towards Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime which will enable voluntary tax compliance, facilitate simple and transparent tax administration, said K.M. Mani, who headed the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on GST, on Friday.
Addressing an auditors' conference here, Mani said: "GST will enable voluntary tax compliance, facilitate simple and transparent tax administration, reduce scope for ethical hazard as well as tax load on the ultimate customer."
"It is an achievement that all the states with so much diversity have come under the umbrella of the empowered committee of finance ministers and inching forward towards creating a single common market in the country," Mani said.
According to Mani, who is also the finance minister of Kerala, the GST is a means of achieving simple indirect tax structure which will transform India into a single common market.
"Having gone through the process of moving from disjointed sales tax regime to much better form of taxation (value added tax), the GST is the next step to make the indirect tax system much more smooth and non-cascading," Mani said in his address to the confernce organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI).
ICAI president Manoj Fadnis also emphasised the importance of introducing the GST in India as it will increase the GDP (gross domestic product) of the country, broaden the tax base of economy, reduce litigation and streamline the current tax structure.
The GST envisages to subsume central indirect taxes like excise duty, countervailing duty and service tax, as also state levies like value added tax, octroi or entry tax and luxury tax.