West Bengal to
meet goods and services tax deadline
West Bengal’s Left Front government is determined to
meet the April 1, 2010, deadline to enforce the goods and services tax (GST) in
the state, Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta said Friday.
He was addressing the national executive committee
meeting of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)
here.
The minister said the state government had already held national as well as
state-level interactions with various trade organisations.
“We had a very positive discussion regarding the enforcement of the GST. All
trade bodies - be it small, medium and large, they all supported the
introduction of this tax structure,” Dasgupta said.
GST is a tax on goods and services with comprehensive and continuous chain of
set-off benefits from the producer’s point and service provider’s point up to
the retailer’s or consumer’s level.
According to the minister, GST is not simply value-added tax (VAT) plus service
tax but an improvement over the present system of VAT and disjointed service tax
which is a significant step forward in tax reforms in India.
“If the GST is properly implemented, it would benefit the buyers to a great
extent,” Dasgupta said.
He said a joint working group comprising officials of the central and state
governments is working to prepare a draft legislation for constitutional
amendment, another for Central GST (CGST), suitable model legislation for state
GST (SGST) and rules and procedures for CGST and SGST.
