NEW DELHI: Andhra Pradesh government is fully supporting centre's proposals of introducing two slab structure of goods and services taxes (GST) and there will be relaxation in the tax slab for food items, education, steel, cement, health, textiles, confirmed Andhra Pradesh Finance Minister P Keshav on Monday.
As GST Council meeting began today, the AP minister told media that Chandrababu Naidu has fully supported the government of India's proposal of simplifying tax structure that would benefit the end consumers. "As alliance party we support PM's Diwali gift and GST reforms. Chandrababu Naidu has taken stand to support all reform. This will be a major step in reviving poor man's economy, " Andhra FM told reporters at the beginning of the Council meeting today.
He further added that the main agenda of the reforms is to ensure that the prices of the daily usage items come down so that the masses could spend more and things become more affordable to poor people. Such measures will help boost Indian economy to me, asserted Andhra FM.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is holding the 56th meeting of the GST Council, in New Delhi, today with Union Minister for State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhury and various representatives of the states including Chief Ministers of Delhi, Goa, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Odisha; Deputy Chief Ministers of Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Telangana; Governor of Manipur.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced GST reforms during his independence day speech. Center has proposed rate rationalization and simplified tax structure under GST reforms. Currently, GST has a four slab structure of 5%, 12%, 18% and 28%. Now, the center has proposed a two slab structure of 5% and 18% , with 40% slab sin items like tobacco products, pan masala etc. With GST meeting underway, businesses and consumers are hoping some major reliefs that could ease compliances and enhance spending respectively.