GST Bill in Parliament soon, not all issues resolved: Jaitley

Aiming for GST roll out by April 2016, the government will move the Constitution Amendment Bill in Parliament within a couple of days, even as compensation and revenue loss to manufacturing states lacked consensus at a meeting held today.

"In view of the near unanimous support of states, that it is going to be a win win situation for all, we will go ahead with the Constitution Amendment in the current session of Parliament," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said after a meeting with the members of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on Goods and Services Tax.

The Committee Chairman K M Mani said there was broad consensus that the Bill should be passed immediately so that GST can be introduced.

"The Prime Minister promised that early steps will be taken to pass the Constitution Amendment, Bill with priority basis," said Mani, who met Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day.

During the meeting, some states have expressed concerns over the Central Sales Tax compensation and demanded that they be compensated for 10 years or beyond for the revenue loss they will incur while rolling out GST, he said.

Manufacturing states, like Maharashtra and Gujarat, have demanded that they be allowed to levy 2 per cent additional tax over and above the state GST rate, he added. Tamil Nadu said the Centre's proposal for resolving issues concerning new indirect tax regime through a GST Council was not acceptable to it.

"Current proposal of the Government of India to introduce a Constitutional Amendment Bill on GST and then to evolve a consensus on various aspects of GST, especially the actual tax rates and tax bands, etc., through the GST Council is not acceptable to us," said M C Sampath, Minister for Commercial Taxes and Registration, Tamil Nadu

. "Broad consensus on the critical issues should be evolved through the Empowered Committee before the enactment of the Bill is taken up," he said.

The GST Constitution Amendment Bill in its present form allows all states to levy 1 per cent additional tax over and above the GST rate to compensate them from the revenue loss.

"I will be giving notice (so that it can be) taken up for discussion in the Lok Sabha...in next couple of days," Jaitley said.