India Inc on Tuesday asked Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to introduce Goods and Services Tax “as early as possible”, amid speculations that the indirect tax reform may not be implemented from the scheduled date of April 1. “We want that the GST deadline should not be missed,” Ficci president Harsh Pati Singhania told reporters after a pre-budget meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee along with other industrialists here on Tuesday.
CII president Venu Srinivasan said, “our view is that even if there are lacunae and flaws in GST, we will correct it as we move along, GST should be implemented as early as possible.”
“We want GST implementation as soon as possible,” Assocham president Swati Piramal said.
Some states, including Madhya Pradesh, Rajashtan, and Tamil Nadu, want the GST implementation to be delayed as there are issues relating to preparedness. In fact, Mukherjee had also said that it might not be possible to introduce GST from April 1.
Singhania said in case GST could not be implemented from April 1, Central sales tax (CST) should be reduced to one per cent from the current two per cent. CST is a levy imposed on inter-state movement of goods and has been cut from earlier four per cent to two per cent in phases, after VAT was introduced. CST does not conform to the idea behind VAT or GST, as the indirect tax reforms aim at a common market across the country.
