FM tables GST draft Bills in Parliament

NEW DELHI: Breaking the jinx to roll out the proposed pan-India unified structure for levy of indirect taxes, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today introduced four Bills aimed at rolling out Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the Lok Sabha amid protest from the Opposition on the ground that the matter was not listed in the House’ business agenda for the day.

Ravi S.Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 27

Breaking the jinx to roll out the proposed pan-India unified structure for levy of indirect taxes, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today introduced four Bills aimed at rolling out Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the Lok Sabha amid protest from the Opposition on the ground that the matter was not listed in the House’ business agenda for the day. The Prime Minister is scheduled to hold key meeting on GST tomorrow.

The Opposition benches objected by saying that they were not given sufficient time to study the Bills. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan overruled their objections and allowed Jaitley to table the Bills. Mahajan said copies of the draft Bills had been circulated to Members on Saturday morning.

Later, Lok Sabha’s Business Advisory Committee met and decided to take up the Bills for discussions and passage on Wednesday.

Jaitley introduced the Central GST Bill, Integrated GST Bill, the Union Territory GST Bill and the Compensation Law bill for passage by Parliament to implement the “one-national one tax regime”.

The government had failed to keep tryst with the April 1 date for rolling out the GST laws — billed as the landmark tax reforms in Independent India. It wants to do so from July 1. For this, Parliament will have to pass the Bills in this Budget Session. A fifth Bill will have to be ratified by Assemblies before the new tax levy matrix is instituted.

There is palpable urgency on part of the government to implement the GST laws, reason being the Centre and the states cannot collect indirect taxes after September 15.

The Bills will move to the Rajya Sabha after their passage by the Lok Sabha. The apprehensions of stalling the Bills by the Opposition in the Upper House, which is majority, have been eviscerated as they have been under the nomenclature of “Money bills”.

Money originates only in the lower House and objections or suggestions by the Upper House regarding it may or may not be accepted by it.