Government may table 4 GST bills in Parliament today: Minister

Government may table 4 GST bills in Parliament today: Minister

New Delhi: The government may table four GST supplementary legislations in Parliament today, a union minister said.

We can do it today as well. A meeting on GST will be chaired by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said when asked about tabling of the four GST bills in the Lok Sabha.

He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an infrastructure event here.

The Cabinet on Monday cleared the four GST related bills to enable roll out of the Goods and Services Tax from July 1.

The four bills are: the Central Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017, the Integrated Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017, the Union Territory Goods and Services Tax Bill 2017 and the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to the States) Bill 2017.

A source had told that the bills would be introduced as money bills in Parliament this week.

Yesterday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that he was hopeful of rolling out GST from July 1 which will create one of the world's biggest single markets and make commodities cheaper and tax evasion difficult.

Jaitley said India has "hugely" a non-tax compliant society and the government banned higher denomination notes to curb the tendency of people to deal in cash that lead to tax evasion as well as terror financing.

PTI

Government Hopeful of Passing GST Bills in next phase of Budget Session

Government Hopeful of Passing GST Bills in next phase of Budget Session

New Delhi: Government is hopeful of getting the supporting legislations of Goods and Services Tax (GST) passed by Parliament in the second phase of the Budget session for rolling out the new indirect tax regime by July.

Replying to a question on GST bill, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Thursday said, “That is on the plate. GST council is meeting on 18th and it will be decided after that, but we are hopeful that supporting GST bills will be passed in the next phase of the session.”

The government is hopeful of getting Central GST (CGST) and Integrated GST (IGST) draft legislations approved at the next GST Council meeting on February 18 and bring them in the second half of the ongoing Budget Session along with GST Compensation Act.

While the CGST will subsume central taxes of excise, central sales tax and service tax, IGST is to be charged on movement of goods and services from one state to another.

States will also have to enact SGST or State Goods and Service Tax laws with minor variation incorporating state based exemptions.

Also, a GST Compensation Act needs to be approved by Parliament to provide for compensation to states that lose revenue because of implementation of GST in the first five years.

The GST bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha during the monsoon session last year.

PTI