GST – Old Wine in New Bottle?

If the rumors emerging from Political Circles, Goods Services Tax (GST) may not serve the objection of ‘One Nation – One Tax’. Reports are emerging that the Central government is contemplating to levy the tax in slabs ranging from 4% to 26%. Necessity commodities will be levied lower tax while luxury items will carry higher tax.

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That will mean that it is not going to be a common tax structure. There also the reports that the Central government is planning to impose a Cess on GST to compensate the losses that occurred in the states due to the new Tax. That means GST is not going to cut off the Tax on Tax system that was proposed to go away with GST.

It is known that Center has to compensate for the loss of the state government for a fixed period. On the other side, GST council involving the states could not finalize the GST Tax rates until now. The Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley the other day said the common ground may be achieved at the next meeting on November 3-4.