Jaitley confident of April 1 deadline of GST rollout; state’s consensus not reached yet

As the centre is all set to make GST operational by next April and discard the traditional tax levying in buying a product or service, it’s still not decided on state’s share. Though the panel met yesterday, they didn’t reach a consensus on the same.
As per news reports, the next meeting has been fixed on November 24-25. However the committee would sit informally on November 20 as well. The meeting called on 9-10 November to take a decision on draft law has been cancelled.

Yesterday’s meeting has agreed on 4-tier GST structure of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has shown his interest to resolve all differences and the delay while laying out the work programme ahead. He reiterated the government's commitment to stick to the April 1 rollout plan.

"Five proposals were put forth. Today we narrowed down to two. We did not want to rush through this as all pros and cons have to be finalised," Jaitley told the Economic Times after the meeting of the GST Council ended. "We will have informal meeting without aides and officers to a find a political solution..."

The two proposals are on how to divide the assesses.

"...whatever the option is, we don't want to take it in a hurry because it has to be a well thought out decision. Because administratively, any mistake on this front could be chaotic," the minister told the ET whose consensus-building approach has been appreciated by states.
In case of differences, the GST Council provides for putting the matter on vote and going ahead with the decision that gets three-fourths vote.

The issue appeared to have been sorted out without a hitch at a September 23 meeting of the council when a cross empowerment model was agreed to. States were to have jurisdiction over assessees with turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore, while both states and the Centre were to assess those above that.

In the case of existing 11 lakh service tax assessees, the Centre was to have exclusive oversight. For new assessees, the plan was to work out a mechanism.

But the agreement could not be clinched at a subsequent meeting on October 19 as some states, such as West Bengal, objected to the proposal when the minutes of the first meeting were taken up.

"When in the month of August we passed the Constitution amendment, it appeared too challenging because the time was very short. As of today, I am more confident than I was in August. Let me say this because bulk of the spadework has been done. Most of the decisions have been taken. Only one key decision remains," he said.