Centre and States agree on crucial CGST and IGST Bills

The likely roll-out of the crucial indirect tax reform, the Goods and Services tax (GST), starting 1 July, received a shot in the arm as the GST Council today approved the draft central GST and integrated GST laws. The GST Council headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley approved the compensation, iGST (integrated GST) and cGST (central GST) at the eleventh council meet on Saturday.

Following the GST Council’s approval, the Centre now seeks to present these bills in the second half of Budget session that begins next week in order to meet the stated goal of implementing the GST from 1 July.

In the last meet held in February, the council had cleared the draft compensation law which will requires the Centre to fully compensate states for any revenue loss for five years after migrating to the new tax system.

The central and state officials will soon start the exercise to determine which goods and services should fall in which tax bracket and the same will be taken to the Council for approval soon.

The GST Council has agreed to keep the upper band of the rate in the law at 20 percent from the existing 14 percent, which may lead to a peak GST levy move up to being as high as 40 percent (20 percent central and 20 percent state).

Another step remaining is to slot all the commodities under the GST tax slabs: 5 percent, 12 percent, 18 percent and 28 percent. Each item has to be fitted under a particular slab. After the 4-5 March meeting, GST officers will do the slotting.