Empowered Committee on GST to meet on Oct 14

New Delhi, Oct 6 (PTI) The Empowered Committee of State
Finance Ministers on GST (Goods and Service Tax), headed by
eastern Indian state Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar
Modi, will meet here on October 14 to discuss issues related
to the roll out of the ambitious indirect tax regime.
"We will be discussing the GST and the Central Sales Tax
(CST) compensation to states besides many other issues
pertaining to Value Added Tax (VAT)," Modi, who is also
Bihar's Finance Minister, told PTI.
While a Constitutional Amendment Bill for roll out of GST
has been introduced in Parliament and referred to a Standing
Committee, there are several issues which are yet to be
resolved between the Centre and states.
These issues include provision for states to levy cess in
case of natural calamities; their autonomy in matters of
taxation; concerns on powers of the proposed dispute
settlement authority; and concerns of state governments on
loss of revenue on account of reduction in CST rates.
"The CST was reduced to 2 per cent from 4 per cent about
three years back. Now the Centre has to compensate states. For
two years, 2010-11 and 2011-12, many states have not received
compensation," Modi said.
CST, a tax on inter-state movement of goods, was reduced
from 4 per cent to 3 per cent in 2007-08, and further to 2 per
cent in 2008-09 after the introduction of Value Added Tax
(VAT).
The central government has already asked all the states
to file their compensation claims for the last fiscal on
account of reduction in CST. It plans to do away with CST in
phases to facilitate implementation of the new indirect tax
regime.
An amount of Rs 2,411 crore has been released to 10
States for loss of CST revenue in financial year 2010-11.
The Empowered Committee, Modi said, will also take up
unresolved taxation issues between the states and the Centre
with regard to VAT.
"We will discuss the taxes on textiles, tobacco and sugar
and issues pertaining to additional excise duty. We will
discuss about the possibility of imposing VAT on textiles and
sugar and what are the tax rates being imposed on tobacco, he
added.
The Committee will also discuss the views of the state
governments on the online payment of taxes.
"We want all banks to facilitate the deposit of online
payment of Central Excise, Income Tax and VAT. After the
meeting, we will talk to the Reserve Bank on this issue", he
added.
The committee, Modi said, will also come out with a
report on the experiences of the GST team which recently
visited Europe. It will contain information about the
implementation of GST in EU and other related issues, he
added. PTI RSN
MNS