Using the concluding session of Petrotech 2016 as a venue to allay any concerns on the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax regime in the country, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: “In politics, logjams exist only to be resolved, and in this case, we have a calendar deadline.” He was giving the valedictory address at the three-day international oil and gas conference.

Talking point

Introduction of GST has become a focal point of all international rating agencies as well as world at large, when talking about ease of doing business here.

Jaitley, who also heads the GST Council, said: “We are hoping that all (issues) will be resolved, and we should be able to do so by April 1, 2017. But the flexibility of time or the luxury of time is very inadequate.

“The Constitutional amendment, which was passed earlier this year, clearly says that the old taxation system can continue for a year. This means that on September 15, 2017, with regard to the old taxation system, curtains will be down…”

The Finance Minister expressed confidence that since most of the issues have been resolved on GST and the final draft is being worked upon, the issue of empowerment, which is essentially an administrative issue, is possible to resolve.

“Our supporting officers have been trying to work out a consensus. There is only one major issue pending — since taxes such as the VAT, Central Excise, Services Tax and some other local taxes in States are going to be merged into one principal tax, how do you reconcile with the parallel machinery? How can we use the potential of the administrative machinery of both the Centre and the States? And how can we cross empower them so that all these taxes that are merged into one, only have to be assessed once?... I’m quite certain it could get resolved in the near future,” he elaborated.

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