Govt to work out GST rates by January

The Empowered Committee of state finance ministers has set up panel to work out the rates for GST in a months time. The panel would comprise state finance secretaries, commissioners of commercial taxes and concerned joint secretaries in union finance ministry, Parthasarthy Shome, advisor to the finance minister, and empowered committee member secretary Satish Chandra.

The empowered committee is in favour of two set of rates for goods and a single rate for services which would be levied both at central and state level. This issue would also be examined by the panel.Based on the recommendations of this committee on the GST rates, and views of the state finance ministers, a model would be crystallized and subsequently, a report would be submitted to finance minister P Chidambaram.

The empowered committee would then call a meeting of chambers of commerce and industry and trade associations and work out a draft white paper on GST. This draft would be put on website for a public comment, he said.

GST is proposed to be introduced from April 1, 2010 to integrate all indirect taxes on goods and services at the state and the central level. The empowered committee had last month accepted the recommendation of a working group on GST to have dual GST structure — one at the state level and the other at the central level.

Source : Economic Times - Gurgaon, Haryana, India, dated 23/12/2007