New Delhi, (PTI) The government has circulated official
amendments to the GST bill to drop 1 per cent additional tax and
include a definite provision in the statute for compensating states
for revenue loss for 5 years as it gears up to discuss the long-pending
bill in the Rajya Sabha today.
Under the modified provisions of GST Constitutional Amendment
Bill circulated among the members , GST Council will be required
to establish a mechanism for adjudication of disputes, which could
arise between the Centre and states or among states themselves.
The 2014 bill authorised GST Council to decide upon the modalities
for resolution of disputes.
With these official amendments, the government has partially
met the demands of the Congress party which has been blocking the
bill in the Rajya Sabha. One of the three demands of the Congress
was to do away with the 1 per cent additional manufacturing tax.
On the demand for a Supreme Court judge-headed panel for resolving
GST disputes, the official amendments say that the GST Council will
establish a mechanism for solving disputes.
With regard to the demand for putting a GST rate cap in the
Constitution, the government has not mentioned anything in the official
amendments.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, at a meeting with his state counterparts last week, promised to keep the incidence of tax low while safeguarding the revenue of the states.
Jaitley has been meeting leaders of Congress and other parties,
including SP, BJD, TMC and RJD, to build a consensus on the passage
of the long pending indirect tax reform bill in the Rajya Sabha.
It was approved by the Lok Sabha in May 2015.
