INDIA ENTERS GST REGIME
Pranab, Modi launch India into new tax era; PM calls it Good and Simple Tax
Nearly 70 years after Independence India with a $2-trillion economy became a single market without state border checkposts at midnight, after President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi pressed a button in the Central Hall of Parliament to mark the advent of the Goods and Services tax.
Speaking at a ceremony just before midnight, Mr Mukherjee said the GST had many contentious issues. He said he had moved the constitutional amendment for GST and had met the chief ministers of Gujarat (Mr Modi), (undivided) AP and some other states.
Mr Modi said the GST — he called it a ‘Good and Simple Tax — would be a mechanism to check corruption, improve trade and governance. “There will be no ‘kacha bill’ and ‘pucca bill,” he said. “GST is an economic reform that would soon become social reform,” he said.
Mr Modi and finance minister Arun Jaitley stressed that the GST was the outcome of the collective effort of different governments.
Several Opposition parties boycotted the ceremony, resulting in the absence of former prime minister Manmohan Singh who had tried to push the GST for years. The GST, which replaces five Central taxes and six state taxes, has been welcomed but there are doubts if the infrastructure is in place. Some sections affected by the rise in tax under GST staged protests.