Thursday, November 12, 2014: The central government and the state government get on for sorting the ways over Goods and Services Tax before coming across the GST Bill in the winter session of the Parliament. The difference in the views of State and central government continue to threshold turnover for levying GST. The state government had noted that the alcohol, tobacco and petroleum should remain out of GST system, under the support of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on GST.
The committee headed by Abdul Rahim Rather, J&K finance minister, met in Delhi on Tuesday and discussed about the position on the threshold for imposing GST. Rather said, “The central government had written to the committee suggesting that the threshold annual turnover for levying GST should be raised. In September, the Centre wrote to us suggesting that this decision of the empowered committee should be reviewed. The Centre suggested that the limit should be Rs 2.5 million. Even if it is not Rs 2.5 million, Rs 1.0 million limit should be increased.”
Even the state government had decided in August about the threshold to be fixed at 1 million. Rather noted that they would go by the decision that the committee had already taken. The GST has been planned to be rolled out on 1 April’2016.
The Constitution amendment Bill for GST was introduced by UPA government in 2011. The centre and state government could not reach to any conclusion for several issues. The major stumbling block was over Rs 500,000 million worth of central sales tax cut compensation pending to the states.
However, finance minister Arun Jaitley had made it clear to the state governments that the Centre will pay back all the dues in installments provided if they come forward on the GST Bill. The finance ministry will move a cabinet note to clear at least 25 per cent of amount due to the states during the winter session of the parliament.
