Aiming to launch the much-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) by July, the government is preparing to introduce the supporting legislation for Parliament approval on March 27.
Before the Central GST, Integrated GST, State GST, Union Territory GST and Compensation laws will be put together for the approval of Union Cabinet on March 22.
The GST Council has already cleared three supporting laws – IGST, CGST and compensation law. Two more SGST and UTGST have be cleared by states and union territories (UT) before March 16, the day on which the GST Council will meet in New Delhi to put its stamp of approval on state and UT GSTs.
The GST Council will decide on fitment of rates after the supporting legislations are passed by Parliament.
The sources said that the government will add a few more cesses such as infrastructure cess and oil industry development cess to boost resources for states and Centre’s compensation.
The GST Council has earlier cleared a four tier rate structure under the proposed GST at 5, 12, 18 and 28%. The peak rate has been decided at 40%. But this will not be levied in the beginning.
Incentives
To incentivise small businesses, the government recently gave a tax concession under the proposed GST to eateries with lower than Rs 50 lakh turnover.
The rate of tax for them was fixed at 5% after the GST Council decided to widen the ambit of composition scheme to include services.
However, industry experts hoped that this should not be the start of differentiated rates for all services in the future. One nation, one tax will lose its meaning if there are too many exemptions, they said.
Deccan Herald, 9 March 2017
