Constitutional Amendment Bill on GST in final stages

The law ministry is likely to finalise the Constitutional Amendment Bill on the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by next week. It will send draft of the Bill to the finance ministry which will share it with the empowered group of state finance ministers on GST for its feedback.

“We are discussing it (the Bill) with the law ministry. It is in the semi-final stage. Hopefully it will be ready by next week,” said an official in the finance ministry.

The empowered committee will have its next meeting on GST on July 21. The Centre plans to send the draft Bill for consideration of the states before this meeting so that its provisions can be discussed on that meeting and GST is put on the fast track.

The government is trying to get the approval of the states on the draft of Constitutional amendment at the earliest so that the Bill can be introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament likely to begin on July 26.

This is for the first time since the Constitution was enacted that a tax base is proposed to be shared between the Centre and the states. GST’s entry in the Constitution will allow both the Centre and the states to levy tax on the same set of goods and services.