GST

Delhi : Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said the Centre is willing to accommodate states’ concerns to ensure speedy implementation of the proposed goods and services tax. This is an indication that the Centre may make another attempt to break the logjam in talks on the constitutional amendment needed to implement the country’s comprehensive indirect tax reform. “The central government, with a view to evolving a consensus, is willing to consider a phased approach for the introduction of GST,” Mr Mukherjee said in his address at a seminar organised by the Comptroller & Auditor General of India. The GST is already delayed by a year and will miss the new deadline of April 1, 2011 because of the lack of consensus between the Centre and the states. It will replace multiple indirect taxes levied by the Centre and the states with a neat single levy, which will help reduce administrative costs, create a national market and prevent evasion. The single tax will subsume state-level value added tax, octroi, entry tax and central taxes including excise duty and service tax.