Cabinet approves draft GST bills

The Union Cabinet on Monday gave its nod to four legislations of the much-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) bill, namely Central, State, Union Territory and Integrated GST, along with the Compensation Bill.

The aforementioned legislations are reported to be taken up for discussion in the Parliament later this week.

The meeting held earlier today was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, exclusively to discuss the outcomes of the above legislations, subsequently enabling the GST to be rolled out as per schedule on July 1, 2017.

The Central, State, Union Territory and Integrated GSTs were earlier approved by the GST Council after multiple discussion over 12 meetings of the Council held in the last six months.

The CGST Bill makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on intra-state supply of goods or services for both by the Central Government. On the other hand, IGST Bill makes provisions for levy and collection of tax on inter-state supply of goods or services or both by the Centre.

The UTGST Bill makes provisions for levy on collection on tax on intra-UT supply of goods and services in the Union Territories without legislature. Union Territory GST is akin to States Goods and Services Tax (SGST) which shall be levied and collected by the States/Union Territories on intra-state supply of goods or services or both.

The Compensation Bill provides for compensation to the states for loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of the GST for a period of five years as per section 18 of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016.

The incorporation of the GST is believed to ease the collection and payment of indirect taxes. Additionally, industry experts have revealed that tax payment can be monitored efficiently by the concerned authorities.

Earlier this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while presenting the Union Budget 2017-18, stated that country-wide outreach efforts are underway to explain the provisions of GST to various sectors of the society.