The Finance Ministry on Tuesday (15 January) quashed reports of draft model law on goods and services tax (GST) being in the public domain and said the draft law will be finalised in a month’s time and put up for comments and suggestions from the trade and industry.
“It is going to take at least another month by which we will be able to finalise the draft law and once that is done we will be putting it up in the public domain and similar process of consultation and regional conferences for interaction with trade and industry will be done, so that we are able to get your comments on the draft law,” said Rashmi Verma, special secretary, Department of Revenue at Assocham’s national conference on GST.
"There was talk about draft model law being there in the public domain, but let me clarify the draft model law which has been put up by somebody on the public domain is not the official draft law, in fact we are still working on it", Verma added.
On the issue of proposed one per cent tax on inter-state movement of goods, she said that the Ministry has accepted the recommendations of the Select Committee and the cascading aspect of one per cent additional tax will get minimised because this will now be only on the sale i.e. on the value addition and not on the supply of goods.
“We are in the process of pre-budget discussions and despite the fact that GST is not too far in the horizon, every single industry association starts their discussions only with a series of exemptions which they would like to have,” said Najib Shah, chairman, Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC).
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Haider Ali Khan is an alumnus of IIMC. He holds a degree in English Journalism from the prestigious campus. His passion includes Aviation, Technology, Politics and Sports.
