Dual GST roll-out date remains Apr 2010: Asim     

West Bengal finance minister and chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers, Asim Dasgupta, today reiterated that the target date to roll out dual goods and services tax (GST) remained April 1, 2010.

At an interactive session with the members of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry(Ficci), Dasgupta said “April 1, 2010 continue to remain the target date to roll out the GST.”

After the government finalises which taxes are to be exempted from GST, a Constitutional amendment, giving the power of levying service tax to the state, will be required. The government is also working on a draft model for the Central, state and inter-state GST.

In view of these procedural steps, there are anticipations that the April 1,2010 deadline to roll out GST might be missed.

This apart, the preparations for developing IT infrastructure is also in progress.

“There is a need for making a comprehensive IT structure. When you have inter-state transactions and the innovation of tracking it down through the IGST, the Government of India has to come forward with it. They are co-operating with us, and a knowledgeable agency will be deployed to finish the implementation of the IGST's IT structure and the connecting data with the state-level IT structure. That should happen by the middle of January. By the end of December, we will be able to make our target date concrete,” earlier Dasgupta had said.

On taxes like purchase tax, Dasgupta said, after “compensation and continuing adjustment”, eventually the aim would be to get rid of these taxes, so as to subsume all the taxes into GST.

Source: Business Standard, India, dated 12/12/2009