Migration to GST massive administrative challenge: CEA

Mumbai: The Goods and Services Tax is now on fast-track to become a reality with passage of four key legislations in Parliament. The government is confident that the indirect tax regime would come into effect from July 1, its revised deadline.

Arvind Subramanian, government's chief economic adviser, told a TV channel that transition to GST regime was a massive tax and administrative change both at the Centre and the states.

Subramanian believed there was a huge challenge for GST's implementation as smooth migration will require lots of paper works, processes and the exercise will undergo multiple levels of procedures.

Despite all these, the GST regime faces other hurdles in its way that it needs to put aside to make India a ‘One Nation One Tax’ regime. After the Parliament has passed the four key bills, now the challenge before the government is how smoothly it puts these laws into effect.

Under the GST regime, all goods and services will be taxed at the point of consumption instead of production.

Now all the states are required to formulate a timeframe for taking up State GST bills and clear them before a set deadline. State GST laws will subsume several state levies like Value Added Tax and Entertainment Tax etc. 

"It is not going to be a bed of roses — the country needs to ready for immense chaos in the months after GST is implemented,” Bloomberg quoted Arvind Datar, a senior lawyer at the Madras High Court as saying.

Datar added that just as demonetisation created paralysis in the country, GST will create its own chaos.