Select panel on GST Bill to submit report next month

A Parliamentary panel will in the second week of July submit its report on the Goods and Services Tax Bill, which is stuck in the Rajya Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said today.
The Upper House will take up for the passage in the ensuing Monsoon session of Parliament the Constitutional Amendment Bill for rollout of GST in place of all indirect taxes, once the Select Committee gives its report.
The Minister told business community here that the government will try to get the three supporting legislations for the implementation of the comprehensive indirect tax law in the subsequent sessions of Parliament.

The government proposes to implement the GST from April 1, 2016, he said, adding "what we have on the table is the consensus proposal."
"It's (GST Bill) now before a select committee of the Upper House which I am told by the second week of July much before the next session of Parliament begins is going to submit its report and therefore the work has significantly enhanced as far as that areas is concerned," he said here.
"The Lower House has passed it. Even though principal opposition party wanted to defer it by somehow referring it to a committee...The significant part was almost every other political parties including the allies of the principal opposition party supported the Bill and the principal opposition party also did not oppose the Bill they wanted further discussion on it," he said.

Touted as the single biggest indirect tax reform since independence, the GST will subsume various levies like excise duty, service tax, entry tax and octroi.
With regard to direct taxes, Jaitley said he said that the government would start the process of reducing corporate tax rate from 30 per cent to 25 per cent from the next fiscal.