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The government is preparing model draft legislations to implement the proposed national goods and services tax (GST).
"It is to put these for comments from stakeholders once Parliament approves the GST constitution amendment bill," disclosed Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) member V S Krishnan at a business chamber event here.
He said this would be done once the constitution amendment, pending in the Rajya Sabha, is passed. This Bill will also then, have to be approved by half the states. The Bill, approved by the Lok Sabha, is being scrutinised by a Rajya Sabha panel, likely to give its report next week.
The three legislations - Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and integrated GST (iGST) - will have to be approved by the respective legislatures for nationwide roll out of the single rate GST.
CGST would be a central law and states would have to pass their own legislation, for which the model law is being prepared. States would also have to approve iGST, on inter-state movement.
The government plans to implement the single rate GST, subsuming central excise, service tax and other local levies, from April 1 next year.
Krishnan said there could be a GST secretariat to facilitate consultation between Centre and states, "where Centre and state officers can come together in consultative arrangements and provide an institutional basis to that". He said it would aid communication between CBEC officers in the field, who'd be implementing CGST, and a state's commercial tax department, who'd implement SGST.
Additionally, GST Network chairman Navin Kumar said at the same event that five information technology (IT) companies had bid for building the proposed network for smooth rollout of the new indirect tax regime. "We will finalise (the bidder) by the end of next month," he said.
