BENGALURU: “The Centre is celebrating the fourth anniversary of the GST regime. But sadly, it is a dark celebration of snatching away the rights and freedom of states with respect to taxes,” JDS leader and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy commented here on Saturday.
“The Centre had promised the States that it would compensate the losses while introducing the GST regime. But it has gone back on its word. Karnataka is yet to get the GST compensation of around Rs 9,000 crore. We could have celebrated if the amount had been paid. The funds would have helped the State which is suffering from a severe resource crunch due to Covid,” he said.
“The main intention of GST is to divert revenues of states to the Centre so that states would have to beg for their allocation. This system of slavery was evolved by Congress and implemented by BJP. The tax regime also failed to better the lives of people. It has not given a boost to startups or improved the condition of entrepreneurs,” he said.