New Delhi: The Centre on Friday introduced the much-awaited Goods and Services Tax (GST) Constitutional Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha to create a single tax for goods and services across the country.Calling it as the “single biggest tax reform” since independence, finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the Bill will be considered for passing in the Budget session of Parliament beginning February.
GST will subsume a host of taxes such as central excise duty, additional excise duties, service tax, additional customs duty and special additional duty of customs. At the state level, taxes including VAT, central sales tax, entertainment tax, octroi and entry tax, purchase tax and luxury tax would be subsumed in GST.
Both Centre and states will simultaneously levy GST across the value chain. The Centre would levy and collect Central GST, and states would collect the State GST on all transactions within a State. The Centre would levy and collect the Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) on all inter-state supply of goods and services. Proceeds of IGST will be apportioned among the states.
