GST Bill gets nod by President Pranab Mukherjee

President Pranab Mukherjee on 8 September 2016 gave his assent to the Constitution 122nd Amendment) (GST) Bill, 2014 as per Article 111 of Constitution of India. With this assent, the bill becomes law and allows rolling out a new indirect tax regime.

After the Presidential assent, the bill will be notified to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council that will decide the tax rate, cess and surcharges. The council to be headed by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will comprise of state Finance Ministers.

Now, the union and state governments will have to draft the Central GST, State GST and integrated GST laws for being passed in the winter session of the Parliament. The CGST and IGST will be drafted on the basis of the model GST law.

On the other hand, the states will draft their respective GST (SGST) laws with minor variation, incorporating State-based exemptions. The IGST law would deal with inter-State movement of goods and services.

Goods and Services Tax

The GST is a single indirect tax, which will subsume most of the Central and State taxes such as the Value Added Tax (VAT), excise duty, service tax, central sales tax, additional customs duty and special additional duty of customs.

Background

The bill passed by both houses of Parliament in August 2016 and ratified by 19 states was sent to the President’s secretariat. The bill needed ratification by the legislative assemblies of at least 50 percent of the states.

The states that ratified the bill include Assam (first to ratify), Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Haryana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Telangana, Goa, Odisha, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

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