10 things to watch out for in GST Bill

10 things to watch out for in GST Bill

The Constitution does not provide for a parallel levy of indirect taxes by the Centre and states, a pre- requisite for the roll- out of goods and services tax ( GST) in the country. The government introduced in Parliament last week the 122nd Constitution amendment Bill to address this. Some key highlights of the Bill are:

1. Enables introduction of GST The Bill replaces the lapsed 115th Constitution amendment Bill, introduced by the United Progressive Alliance ( UPA) government in March 2011. This enables the Centre and state governments, including Union territories, to introduce the law for levying GST on supply of goods and services. Under the GST regime, there will be one Central GST law and one state GST law each for the states.

Background Material on GST

As you may be aware, Hon’ble Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley, while presenting Union Budget 2015-16, has proposed to implement Goods & Services Tax (GST) in India with effect from 1st April 2016. GST is a broad based and a single comprehensive tax levied on goods and services consumed in an economy. More than 100 countries across the world have introduced GST or Federal VAT in one form or the other with Malaysia being the latest to join the trend. The Indirect Taxes Committee of ICAI, with a view to update the members and other stakeholders at large about GST, had launched a Background Material on GST in October, 2014. The said material has now been revised and includes the changes proposed by 122nd Constitution Amendment (GST) Bill, 2014 and standardized PPT on GST launched by Indirect Taxes Committee which is used for conducting Programmes on GST across all branches of ICAI. It also acclaimed by Hon’ble Finance Minister and Chairperson, CBEC.  It is an all-inclusive material, which would provide an insight to the basic concepts of proposed GST regime. You can download the Background Material on GST from website of Indirect Taxes Committee www.idtc.icai.org , which is available on the following link:  Download GST Background Material