New Delhi, March 27, 2017: Union Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday introduced four crucial bills Lok Sabha in run up to implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The four bills included the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Bill, Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) Bill, the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Bill and the Union Territory Goods and Services Tax (UT-GST) Bill.
This is being considered as a concrete step towards GST implementation from July 1, 2017. The pending aspects as classification of goods and services, various rules and grandfathering of tax exemption schemes are likely to be given a final shape soon.
The actual rates in the four-slab structure approved by the GST Council are 5, 12, 18 and 28 percent. The GST (Compensation to States) Bill provides for mechanism for compensating any loss of revenue of states in the first five years from introduction of the GST.
All the indirect central government levies like sales tax, service tax, excise duty, additional customs duty (Countervailing Duty), special additional duty of customs, surcharges and cesses will be merged in the GST.