New Delhi: Goods and Sales Tax Council, a high-level body of the Centre and states which met on Saturday for a straight second day, failed once again to reach a consensus on how they divide taxpayers among themselves for assessment under the proposed new tax regime.
The fifth GST Council meeting also couldn’t complete the approval process for the four drafts — Central GST, State GST, Integrated GST and State Compensation Law.
The Council, which has Union finance minister Arun Jaitley as its chairman and state finance ministers as members will meet again on December 11 and 12 to try and reach a consensus. Mr Jaitley indicated that he was not in favour of a voting in Parliament to resolve the issue. But in case things are not resolved, he might be forced to conduct a voting.
“Are we close to resolving this issue (on cross-empowerment or dual control)? I will keep my fingers crossed. Once this issue is resolved, I would consider it a done deal,” said Mr Jaitley.
GST must by September 16, 2017, says Jaitley
Finance minister, who heads the council, said, “I hope during the next meeting on November 11-12, there is a positive movement as far as laws are concerned. But on the critical issue of cross empowerment, two-three suggestions have come."
He went on to say that the new regime will have to be put in place latest by September 16, 2017, as it is a constitutional requirement. Explaining further, Mr Jaitley said during the two days the Council discussed draft CGST and IGST laws.
"We started approving the laws clause by clause and almost nine chapters of each have been discussed. We are heading towards consensus on these laws. There are two other laws - Compensation and IGST, which will be discussed in the next meeting on December 11, 12. The issue of dual control-linked IGST remains unresolved and we will discuss this as well in the next meeting,” he said.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Kerala finance minister Thomas Isaac said, “There is no consensus...We were not able to arrive at a consensus regarding the cross empowerment model. Therefore, the GST laws could not be completed.
