The Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in his Union
Budget 2012-13 speech said that the Goods and Services tax (GST) will be
operational by August 2012.
To operationalize the GST, the Constitution (115 th Amendment) Bill has been
introduced in the Lok Sabha in March 2011 to enable Parliament and state
legislatures to make laws for levying GST on every transaction of
supply of goods or services or both.
The GST Council is to work on the basis of consensus and
make recommendations on issues like GST rates, exemption lists, and threshold
limits.
Some goods, namely crude petroleum, diesel, petrol, aviation
turbine fuel, natural gas and alcohol are not to come under the purview of the
GST.
Further, the bill provides for setting up of a GST dispute
settlement authority, comprising a chairperson and two members to resolve
disputes arising out of deviations from the recommendations of the GST Council
either by the central or state governments. The draft Bill has since been
referred to the Parliamentary Committee on Finance for examination
Leave a Reply