Jaitley to meet state finance ministers on GST

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will meet his state counterparts Thursday to discuss challenges in rolling out the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha said here Wednesday.

"On GST we are working on variety of discussions with the states. The legislative aspects of the GST are complicated, they have to be approved by the states. CST (Central Sales Tax) compensation is one of the item which is under discussion," Sinha said at the Delhi Economics Conclave here.

The government is trying to roll out the GST by April 1, 2016.

Dec 9, Sinha informed the Rajya Sabha: "There has been broad agreement on most issues related to GST with the states in the recent months and the GST rollout is scheduled on April 1, 2016."

"The tax rate under GST may be nominal or zero rated for the time being. This has been proposed to insulate the revenues of the states from the impact of GST, with the expectation that in due course, GST will be levied on petroleum and petroleum products," he said.

GST is envisaged to absorb the indirect taxes including excise duty and service tax at the central level and state-based value added tax and levies.