Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that the government is ready to discuss about the changes in Goods & Services Tax (GST) bill with the Congress party, but counselled the party to reconsider its suggestions saying some of them, can damage the system much more than it can benefit.

Jaitley is trying for the approval of GST Bill, in the winter sessions of Parliament, which are going to begin from tomorrow, to roll out the new indirect tax regime from planned April 1.

Regarding this, he said that, he is ready to discuss with the Congress party, as some of its suggestions, were not in the larger interest of the GST structure.

Jaitley further opined that, the people who are supporting the reforms are much bigger than those who obstruct.

“The wisdom which dawned on my friends in the Congress party had not dawned on them when Pranab Mukherjee (as Finance Minister) introduced the GST (in 2011).

"It did not dawn on them when (the then Finance Minister) P Chidambaram accepted the Standing Committee recommendations, but to come out with the preposterous suggestion that tariff must be mentioned in the Constitution document so that in a given exigency if tariff has to be altered you need a two-third majority in both houses of Parliament and has to go to each of the states," Jaitley said.

If a GST with a defective architecture is imposed, it would be extremely unfair to the country, as it damages the system, more than it can benefit.    

It is known that, Congress had paused the GST Bill passage in the last session of Parliament over its demand that a revenue-neutral rate not higher than 18 % be mentioned in the Constitution Amendment bill.

GST, which will subsume more than a dozen state levies to create a single market, is to be implemented from April 1, 2016. But due to the severe opposition from the Congress,  a Constitution Amendment Bill could not go through the Rajya Sabha in the Parliament’s last session.

If at all, Parliament does not pass the Bill in the session in the winter session, i.e., from November 26th to December 23rd, the April 1st deadline may be missed.

After the bill is passed, it should be ratified by more than half of the states, before Parliament passes another enabling bill to implement GST.

On the other side, the Congress is opposed to states being given powers to levy an  additional 1 % tax on supply of goods over and above GST rate. It also demanded to include tobacco and petroleum products within the GST ambit.

Reacting to this, Jaitley said, “Once we are going in for such reforms, this reform takes place once in decades. And I would expect, the party which has been for over half a century has been a ruling party to seriously reconsider some of these suggestions.

By Phani Ch