The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council, which began its seventh round of meetings on Thursday focussed on finalising the draft model legislation for the indirect tax reforms.

Sources said the Council discussed the draft Central and State GST Bills, which were cleared to a large extent.

“There was detailed clause by clause discussion. The draft Bills for integrated GST and compensation as well as administrative control over businesses will be taken up for discussion on Friday,” said an official.

The next round of meetings of the GST Council is likely to be held on January 8.

The Council, which is chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and includes Finances Minister of all States and Union Territories as members, had previously met on December 11.

The Council had discussed the draft model legislation on Centre, State and integrated GST and compensation. States had called for re-drafting of some provisions during the clause-by- clause discussion of the Bills.

Jaitley had indicated that the Bills would be introduced in the Budget Session of Parliament and had stressed that the target of April 1, 2017 was still achievable.

However, more recently, he had said that since GST was a transaction tax, which could be rolled out any time during the year until September 2017.

The Council did not take up the issue of administrative control over small businesses in the last meeting and is expected to try and reach a breakthrough in this round of meetings.

While States such as Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have sought exclusive control over small businesses with an annual turnover of less than ₹1.5 crore and cross empowerment of officials of the Centre and States beyond this limit, the Union Finance Ministry wants that the Centre and State should get a fixed number of assessees.

Empowered panel meeting

Meanwhile, the State Ministers also re-grouped and met as the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers soon after the GST Council meeting ended.

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