GST: No consensus reached over tax rates, says Jaitley

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council's third stage of discussions ended without reaching a consensus on the tax slab rates.

Speaking to the media here, shortly after concluding his meet, Jaitley said the Council will be meeting on November 3-4 which would then deliberate upon the tax slab structure.

"Discussed for some reasonable period of time rate structure and then it was decided that in the next meet we would finalise rate structure," Jaitley said.

"Once that issue is decided, a decision on the rate structure will then become easier," he added.

Meanwhile, Jharkhand Finance Minister C.P. Singh said a consensus with regard to tax rates would emerge in the next GST Council meet.

"Among other things no consensus has emerged right now. Two issues were discussed in today's meeting. One was related to cess and other tax models and other relate to states making turnover of above 1.5 crores. However, a consensus would be reached 3 rd and 4th," Singh told ANI.

The Finance Ministry has set the November 22 deadline for building consensus on all the issues in the Council for rollout of the new indirect tax regime from April 1, 2017.

On Tuesday, the Council reached a consensus on state compensation and the base year will be 2015-16. The meeting reached at a consensus on the way states would be compensated for any loss of revenue from implementation of the new indirect tax regime from April 1, 2017.