Amidst the scorching sun in Delhi, the next Goods and Services Tax (GST) meet will be held in Jammu and Kashmir where all state finance minister will be participating and this meet will be chaired by the union finance minister Arun Jaitley .
After a broad political consensus, Indian Parliament passed the bill in 2016. It was boosted by the ‘good wishes’ of the opposition parties. The GST aims to integrate the entire country into a common market by removing barriers to trade. It will be an enabling provision to allow the Central and state governments to build a new tax regime.
The GST journey started in 2000 when the National Democratic Alliance constituted an empowered committee. Asim Dasgupta, the then finance minister from West Bengal headed this empowered committee. In 2004, Vijay Kelkar presented his recommendation to the concerned bodies and emphasized on replacing the existing tax regime
P. Chidambaram- the then Union Finance Minister introduced it in the Union Budget. In 2011, the Government introduced it in the Parliament and negotiation with states started. After more than one decade of negotiations and deliberations, the GST is going to subsume the central sales tax (CST), State Value Added Tax (VAT), entry tax besides replacing the central excise duty and service tax. Unlike income tax, it is going impact everybody including the poor.
In this backdrop, we are listing important taxes that would be subsumed under the GST are:
I: GST would replace the following taxes currently levied and collected by the Centre:
Central Excise Duty
Duties of Excise (Medicinal and Toilet Preparations)
Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance)
Additional Duties of Excise (Textiles and Textile Products)
Additional Duties of Customs (commonly known as CVD)
Special Additional Duty of Customs (SAD)
Service Tax
Central Surcharges and Cesses so far as they relate to supply of goods and services
II: State taxes that would be subsumed under the GST are:
State VAT
Central Sales Tax
Luxury Tax
Entry Tax (all forms)
Entertainment and Amusement Tax (except when levied by the local bodies)
Taxes on advertisements
Purchase Tax
Taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling
State Surcharges and Cesses so far as they relate to supply of goods and services
(Source: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=161273)
