GST awareness programme to start from 1 April

The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arun Jaitley addressing a Post-Budget Press Conference, in New Delhi on February 01, 2017. The Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Shri Arjun Ram Meghwal and the Minister of State for Finance, Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, the Finance Secretary, Shri Ashok Lavasa and all other Secretaries of the Ministry of Finance and the Principal Director General (M&C), Press Information Bureau, Shri A.P. Frank Noronha are also seen.
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressing a Post-Budget Press Conference, in New Delhi on February 01, 2017.

The Goods and Service Tax (GST) Council has finalised its recommendations on almost all the issues based on consensus after spirited debate and discussions, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while presenting the General Budget 2017-18 in the Lok Sabha.

He said the government on its part has promptly given effect to various provisions of the Constitutional Amendment Act, including constitution of the GST Council. The GST Council held nine meetings to discuss various issues relating to GST, including broad contours of the GST rate structure, threshold exemption and parameters for composition scheme, details for compensation to States due to implementation of GST, examination of draft model GST law, draft Integrated Goods and Service Tax (IGST) law and the Compensation Law and administrative mechanism for GST.  He said the preparation of IT system for GST is also on

He said the preparation of IT system for GST is also on schedule.

 Jaitley said that the extensive reach-out efforts to trade and industry for GST will start from 1st April, 2017 to make them aware of the new taxation system. He said that since the enactment of the Constitution (1o1 Amendment) Act, 2016, there has been substantial progress on preparatory work towards ushering in GST which is by far the biggest tax reform since Independence. Several teams of officers both from the states and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) have been working to give finishing touch to the Model GST law, rules and other details, he added.

Jaitley said that the government, through the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) shall continue to strive to achieve the goal of implementation of GST as per schedule without compromising the spirit of co-operative federalism. He added that the implementation of GST is likely to bring more taxes both to central and state governments because of widening of tax net.

He stated that not many changes have been proposed in current regime of Excise & Service Tax in the Budget proposals since they are to be replaced by GST soon.

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