23rd February 2010

The decision to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from April 1 has been deferred with the chairman of the panel constituted to build consensus on the issue saying that it was not feasible to implement the new tax regime by the due date.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has asked the empowered committee of state finance ministers, headed by West Bengal Finance Minister Asim Sengupta, to work out a GST package whereby states have to share 50 percent of the losses due to Central Sales Tax for the current financial year.
A joint working group comprising officers of the central government, a few state governments and the empowered committee of the state finance ministers, has been constituted to prepare drafts of the constitutional amendment bill, central and state GST legislation.

The government had set a target for uniform rollout of GST for April 1 but states are not willing to give up their powers that let them levy taxes unilaterally