GST: Parliament passes four key bills

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill is touted to be one of the biggest tax reforms in India.

It is a comprehensive nationwide indirect tax on the manufacture, sale, and consumption of goods and services.

It helps in bringing into effect a single tax instead of the multiple, fragmented taxes levied as various forms of indirect taxes at present.

The GST Council has cleared a bill, seeking to provide compensation to states for losses they may incur after rolling out the GST.

However, the central GST (C-GST), the state GST (S-GST) and the integrated GST (I-GST) bills are yet to be cleared by the GST council.

The next meeting of the council is scheduled for 4-5 March.

The GST Council has cleared the Central GST and Integrated GST law. However the legal framework for the State GST and Union Territory GST have yet to be cleared by the Law Commission.

The draft compensation bill has also been approved by the council.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das, last week, stated that the roll-out of GST would be on July 1.

The GST council approved two crucial legislations - the state GST and the union territory GST bills.

The final-drafts of the other 3 bills had already been cleared by the council in their previous meetings.

Now the final step is - the bills will be sent to the Cabinet and Parliament for approval.

The July 1st deadline for implementation of GST seems realistic.

The union cabinet on March 20 cleared key legislations relating to the Goods and Services Tax, including the Integrated GST, the Central GST, the State or Union Territory GST, and a law related to compensation to states.

According to sources, the government plans to introduce the legislations in parliament this week itself.

This paves the way for implementation of the regime from July 1.

Implementation of the GST bill may be delayed from the planned July 1 to September 1 for further fine-tuning of the bill and to give industries more time to prepare.

The GST Council is running slightly behind the schedule, delaying the process for industries, and major corporates have also reportedly raised concerns with the PMO on the bill's provisions.

The parliament on April 6 passed four bills on the GST after they were approved by the Rajya Sabha without any amendments, paving the way for its nationwide rollout.

These include the Central GST Bill, the Integrated GST Bill, the GST (Compensation to States) Bill, and the Union Territory GST Bill.

They will now be sent to the President for his assent.

Former PM Manmohan Singh batted for passage of the GST bill, urging Congress not to demand changes in the four recently-passed bills for the sake of "maintaining consensus and federal agreement."

Congress, which ultimately withdrew all suggestions, could have had the bill sent back to the Lok Sabha by pressing for amendments.

TMC's Derek O'Brien's suggested amendments, lacking Congress support, were disapproved.