With just about three weeks left for the roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, West Bengal has made a fresh pitch to re-think its launch date.
“July 1 looks extremely difficult. You cannot do jugaad for the world’s largest fiscal reform called GST,” West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra said after the meeting of the GST Council, adding that it should be pushed back by one month to August 1. However, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out any deferment of the implementation of GST and stressed that all timelines will be met.
Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir too is facing issues over the implementation of GST.
While the State Cabinet has approved the GST Bill for the State, the government has called an all-party meeting on June 13 to address concerns put forward by Opposition parties. If GST is not passed by the State, its trade and industry will be in a fix and will not be able to take input tax credit on goods sold to the rest of the country. In fact, While 24 States have passed the State GST Law, seven are yet to do so.
These include Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Punjab, Meghalaya, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
Tamil Nadu has said the SGST Bill will be introduced in the Forthcoming Assembly Session, which starts on June 14.