Industry chambers on Friday raised concerns of the trade and industry on the model Goods and Services Tax (GST) law at a meeting with Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia.

The delegation, which included FICCI and Assocham, raised issues like dual administrative control vested with both Centre and State, wide discretionary powers given to the tax authorities and provisions relating to mandatory pre-deposit for filing appeals.

They also sought clarity on the potential of probable disputes due to separate valuation mechanism for related party transactions.

“Provisions may lead to unwarranted disputes in future so it requested to give a re-look the law before finalising,” FICCI said after the meeting.

Similarly, Assocham raised concerns over the non-inclusion of electricity and petroleum in GST.

“Non-inclusion of electricity will lead to significant economic distortions…Some thinking around zero rating or concessional taxation under existing law on the inputs for these industries is warranted,” it said.

The meeting was a part of the Finance Ministry’s move to get industry’s views on the proposed model GST law before finalising it.

With a target to roll out GST from April 1, 2017, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is hopeful of passage of the Centre GST Bill, Integrated GST Bill and State GST Bill by Parliament and the respective State Assemblies in the Winter Session.

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