NEW DELHI: Paving way for roll of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the Rajya Sabha Thursday passed four legislations and now states have to pass the States GST Bill for the roll out of single taxation regime from July 2017.
The upper house returned the bills after an 8-hour debate which saw the opposition introducing some amendments but all were negated. Congress member Jairam Ramesh, who had moved some amendments, did not press for saying former prime minister Manmohan Singh has advised for consensus on GST.
TMC and Left party sought division of votes on two amendments introduced by them but both were defeated. The Lok Sabha had passed the bill on March 29.
With several members raising concerns about the uniform tax regime leading to rising in prices of the essential commodity, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that it will not lead to inflation and there will be one rate for a commodity in the entire country.
“It is a collective property in which States, political parties, central government, successive governments have all contributed to it. And I have no difficulty in sharing the credit for this with everyone, particularly, the State Governments,” said Jaitley while replying to the discussion.
On petroleum and alcohol products, Jaitley said that we will bring petroleum into the GST, but, zero rated, till such time the Council decides to impose a rate.
“The States were not in agreement in alcohol. Therefore, as the GST experiment succeeds, hopefully, one-day petroleum will come into it,” he said.
On demand for real estate to be brought under GST, the minister said that some of the states started supporting it but the government will see the experience and in the first year will revisit the decision on real estate.
With concerns raised about GST encroaching upon the federal structure, Jaitley said that the manner in which the GST Council has been functioning, not on one issue had the Council divided itself into political lines.
“We have created a federal institution, we can leave it to the federal institution itself to decide as to what is to be done on issues related to petroleum, alcohol and real estate,” he added.
He said that Jammu and Kashmir in the Constitutional Amendment itself and in the law is not included because of Article 370 but consumers in the state will be left out of the benefit of GST.
With some members raising concerns about the structure of GST Network which include some private players, the minister said that the present structure was designed to hire the best talent pool and can be changed anytime.