Political resistance won’t delay GST rollout, says Arun Jaitley

Dated 18th December, 2016

Political resistance of "some parties" will not delay the goods and service tax as a "constitutional embargo" means the tax reform will have to roll out by September next year, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Saturday.

"I am conscious of (the) fact that the current political attitude of some political parties is to delay implementation of GST but the constitutional mandate is very clear," Jaitley said, adding the old taxation regime can continue for just one year from September 16, the date of notification.

"Nobody has the luxury of time to be in the position to put pressure if not blackmail and say it will be deferred. The Constitution mandates the GST has to come in place before September 16, 2017 and states who do not do it will lose the right to collect taxes," said the FM.

"So on September 16, 2017, as far as the current mode of taxation is concerned, the curtain will be down. Therefore, neither the Centre not states can go in for collection," he said.

Jaitley said the rollout is not tied to the Union budget. "It is a transactional tax and not an income tax. Transactional tax can start in any part of the financial year and therefore, the range of timing when it has to come into force because of constitutional necessity is April 1, 2017 to September 16, 2017. Hopefully, the earlier we do, the better it is for the new taxation system," he said.

Though some administrative issues need to be settled by the GST council, the government does not expect any difficulty in the legislations being finally approved.

Jaitley said 10 major decisions have already been taken by the council and all by consensus.

He said Centre and state legislations are being drafted and there should not be any major hurdle as one or two issues with regard to cross empowerment of Centre and states will be amicably solved.

(This article is published in Times of India on 18 December, 2016)