Moily flays retrospective tax introduced by UPA govt

Congress leader Veerappa Moily today criticised the retrospective tax introduced by the former UPA government in which he was a minister, saying it was a "failure" which cost the country "heavily".

"We also failed... I said that time we are wrong. It cost this country heavily," Moily said while speaking in Lok Sabha while initiating a debate on Goods and Services Bill (GST) Bill.

The retrospective tax was introduced in 2012 when the Finance Minister was Pranab Mukherjee, who is now the President of India.

Moily said he supported GST but was against some of the provisions of the bill.

Citing the adverse impact of the UPA government's measure, Moily argued that the GST Bill should be sent to the Standing Committee for wider consultations on the changes made by the current dispensation in the original bill of UPA.

The Congress leader contended that taxation measures require "clarity and certainty" and for this the GST bill should be sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee.

Attacking the government, Moily said it had not made any "fundamental" change in taxation system because of which investment had not picked in a year.

He said over 140 countries have GST measures and India could have "borrowed" and "learnt" from them to come out with a law which would help it to be "in the frontline of developed countries".

Batting for taxation reforms, he said India was suffering due to its "status-quoist" mindset and it had a "curse of bureaucracy". He said bureaucracy in taxation section was against changes.