SUMMARY: CENTRAL GOVT, STATES AGREE ON TIMETABLE FOR APRIL
ROLLOUT.
Day 1 of GST Council meeting took place on Thursday. Keeping April 1, 2017 deadline in mind, Centre and State have agreed on a timetable to decide tax rate, complete legislative work and close difference of opinion on exemptions, threshold etc.
Few key issues that found place in the meeting are as follows:
1. Bigger states like Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu demand larger say and not one-state-one-vote principle. Demand was over ruled by majority.
2. The threshold limit for registration was also taken up for discussion. Debate between 10 lacs and 25 lacs still on. Majority views are favour of higher exemption limit.
3. Proposal on composition scheme unanimously accepted by members. Traders with turnover of 50 lacs will pay lower rate of around 1-2%.
Briefing reporters, Jaitley said that the timetable has been set keeping the April 1, 2017, deadline in mind.
“The target also involves the passage of CGST and IGST law at the central Parliament and then by the state legislatures the state GST law in the winter session itself.
“Today, starting from September 22, we roughly have two months time till November 22 to resolve all outstanding issues and therefore a draft timetable was given which also have been adopted,” Jaitley said.
The GST Council meeting, which is headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and includes representatives of all the 29 states and 2 union territories, will continue Friday.
“With regard to composition we have finalised our proposal which has been unanimously accepted by the members. With regard to threshold for exemptions, there are two sets of suggestions which have come. We have converged to those two different views and both on officers and ministers track we will continue the meeting tomorrow and thereafter so that we are able to converge to one particular figure as far as the exemptions are concerned,” Jaitley said.
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CA Ankit Agarwal
New Delhi, India
