Govt drafting model legislations for GST implementation: CBEC

Model legislations to implement the Goods and Services Tax are being prepared and will be put up for comments from stakeholders after Parliament approves the GST Constitution Amendment Bill, a tax department official said today.
The three legislations -- Central GST (CGST), State GST (SGST) and integrated GST (iGST) -- will have to be approved by the respective legislatures for nationwide roll out of the single rate GST.
"The central and the state laws as soon as they are drafted, they will be put in public domain and the views of the trade and industry will be elicited," Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) Member V S Krishnan said at a Ficci event here.

Krishnan said the draft would be put out once the Constitution Amendment Bill, which is pending in the Rajya Sabha, is passed. The Bill will have to be approved by 50 per cent of the states.
The Bill, which has been approved by the Lok Sabha, is being scrutinised by a Committee of Rajya Sabha. The Committee is likely to give its report to Parliament next week.
The CGST would be a Central law, the states would have to pass the their own legislation which will based on the model legislation being prepared by the Centre. States would also have to approve iGST, which will deal with the inter-state movement of goods and services.

The government plans to implement the single rate GST, which would subsume central excise, service tax and other local levies, from April 1, 2016.

Krishnan said that there could be a GST Secretariat like the Empowered Committee to facilitate consultation between the Centre and States on issues concerning GST.
"We need to create GST Sec in the states where the Centre and state officers can come together in consultative arrangements and provide an institutional basis to that," he said.
It would aid communication between CBEC officers in the field, who would be implementing CGST, and the state's commercial tax department, who would implement SGST.