Issue Of Dual Control Between States And Centre Resolved, GST Roll Out Likely From 1 July

Declaring that the Centre and the states have agreed on a formula to resolve the issue of dual control under the proposed Goods and Services Tax regime, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday said the coming 1 July appeared to be a "more realistic" option for implementing GST instead of the earlier targeted rollout date of 1 April 2017.

Briefing reporters after the ninth meeting of the GST Council, Jaitley said the differences between the Centre and the state governments on the issue of dual control has been resolved. The Finance Minister added that the time required from now to finalise the GST draft legislation and rules and its passage by state legislatures meant postponing the earlier implementation target date.

"Decision has been arrived at on the cross-empowerment and dual control issue of GST. The entire taxation base is to be shared between assessment machinery of Centre and states," he said.

"As per the understanding between the Centre and states, 90 per cent of the GST taxpayers with up to Rs 1.5 crore turnover will be assessed by states, while 10 per cent will be assessed by the central government. As far as those above Rs 1.5 crore turnover is concerned, the assessment will be done on a 50:50 basis between the Centre and states," he added.

On the other contentious issue of territory jurisdiction, Jaitley said states will be empowered to tax any economic activity in territorial waters up to 12 nautical miles. The states have been demanding exclusive control on businesses with turnover below Rs 1.5 crore (the current threshold for central excise), including the service taxpayers.

With inputs from IANS