India : Centre, states continue to disagree on GST jurisdiction

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Centre, states continue to disagree on GST jurisdiction

21
Nov '16

The Centre and the Indian state governments continue to disagree on control over assessees under the impending goods and services tax (GST) bill. Finance minister Arun Jaitley organised an informal meeting with state finance ministers on Sunday to discuss administrative control, however, they failed to come to a consensus regarding the issue.

Centre had proposed 'cross-empowerment' that allows states as well as the Centre to audit assessees, whereas, states are demanding full control over assessees that have an annual turnover of Rs 1.5 crore or less. West Bengal, Uttrakhand, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are some of the states that are insisting on exclusive control over small taxpayers, according to media reports.

Indira Hridayesh, finance minister of Uttarakhand, said that the Centre is willing to give up administrative control over goods companies, but not over services. The Centre will need to give up in order to pass the CGST and IGST bills and for this they will have to politically work out a middle ground.

Kerala's finance minister Thomas Issac said that his state is not willing to compromise as it has given up almost all of its taxation rights.

Jaitley told reporters after the meeting that the discussion had remained incomplete and it will continue in the next meeting to be held on November 25.

Any holdups on the issue in the next meeting have the potential to delay the rollout of the GST bill, resulting in the government missing the targeted rollout date of April 1, 2017. Jaitley has also said that GST needs to be introduced by September 16, 2017 as the validity of the Constitutional Amendment brought in by the Centre and sanctioned by states expires on this day. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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