The roll-out of Goods and Services Tax, touted to be the mother of all economic reforms, will not happen in April as Finance Minister Arun Jaitely had hoped it would.
Coming out of the ninth meeting of the GST Council comprising finance ministers of states in the national capital on Monday, Jaitley was hopeful that it may happen on July 1. "There was a broad view that July 1 appears a more realistic date to roll out the GST," said the finance minister.
The reason? Failure of the council to arrive at a consensus on who will administer the GST. States want powers to control assessees with annual turnover of upto Rs 1.5 crore. The Centre, however, thinks that the states don't have the expertise to administer levies like the GST.
Jaitely who was confident of resolving the issues between the states and the Centre, now has fresh issues to deal with when he drafts the Budget 2017. The author will now have to deal with a plethora of excise duties and service taxes instead of an easily doable worksheet with no more than the GST rates.
