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Minister
of state for finance & industry, Saurabh Patel, who had
participated in the recently-concluded empowered
committee meeting of state finance ministers for GST,
said that the state government has raised many important
issues in the meeting. "We have demanded the Centre to
conduct a nationwide open debate among all stakeholders
and public at large for the proposed uniform GST. The
central government should put the GST in white paper in
public for open discussion."
Patel
further said that the ministers also demanded open
debate on the rate of GST and exemption category of
products under the uniform taxation plans. Monitoring of
movement of inter-state goods is also a grey area where
the Centre has not made any clarification so far, he
said, adding that this grey area is where maximum tax
evasion is possible. There must be a fool proof
monitoring system on the interstate movement of goods.
Stating that the Centre is yet to clear the VAT on
imported goods , the minister said the Union government
should clear this issue in the planned uniform tax
before implementing the GST.
"Only a
few months have been left before implementation of the
GST, but the autonomy of the state and revenue
devolution ratio is still not made clear which is a
major issue. The service part in the proposed tax system
is still full of ambiguity which needs to be cleared.
The Centre has said that textile will be included in the
GST, but registration of the textile units have not yet
started," Patel said.
Source
: Daily News & Analysis, India, dated
26/08/2009
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