Monday, March 27, 2017

Cabinet approves GST Bills to implement GST from July 1

On Monday, the Union Cabinet gave its nod for four crucial GST Bills to usher in the country's biggest-ever tax reform. The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This meeting was conducted to understand and approve the four Bills - Central GST, IGST, UT GST and Compensation Bills.

Now the Government will introduce these Bills in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament itself. It is expected to be tabled in Parliament this week as Money Bills. The Government hopes to get them passed in the ongoing session to ensure the tax is implemented from July 1, 2017.

However, the State GST Bill will be taken up by State Cabinets and introduced in each State Assembly. The GST Council, in its previous two meetings, had given approval to the four legislations as also the State-GST (S-GST) bill.

Once GST is implemented, a composite tax will be levied on sale of goods or rendering of services. After the new indirect tax regime is rolled out, the revenue would be split between Centre and states in almost equal proportion. This because central taxes like excise and service tax and state levies like VAT will be subsumed in the GST. While the CGST will give powers to the Centre to levy GST on goods and services after Union levies like excise and service tax are subsumed, the I-GST is to be levied on interstate supplies. The SGST will allow states to levy the tax after VAT and other state levies are subsumed in the GST. The UT-GST will also go to Parliament for approval.

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