The Centre remains committed to roll out the dual goods and services tax (GST) regime from April 1 next year, a top Finance Ministry official has said.
There is also no plan to rethink on the one percentage point origin-based additional tax sought to be imposed on inter-state sales under the proposed GST framework, V.S. Krishnan, Member-Service Tax and GST, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) said.
“No rethink is planned”, Krishnan told Business Line on the sidelines of FICCI interactive event on GST held here on Friday.
India Inc has been opposed to the Centre’s plan to introduce the additional one per cent origin-based tax as it was inconsistent with the destination based dual GST system proposed for the country.
The plan to introduce one percentage point additional tax would have a cascading effect and could erode margins for industry, they contended.
However, the Centre is keen on this levy as it would help placate the big manufacturing States like Gujarat and Maharashtra in supporting the GST implementation in the country.
Meanwhile, Krishnan also said that the draft legislation on CentralGST, StateGST and iGST will be exposed for public comments once the Constitutional (amendment) Bill is passed.
Krishnan said that the issues under discussions were Rates of CGST, IGST & SGST; threshold limits of exemptions & compounding; List of exempted goods & services; Transitional provisions for treatment of accumulated CENVAT credit; Dispute resolution mechanism; Distribution of responsibility between Centre & State in implementing the three pillars of the compliance verification system – Return Scrutiny, Audit and Anti-evasion.
S Madhavan, Co-chairman of FICCI’s Task Force on GST, said that the GST rates that would be decided in the coming days should be as moderate as possible.