Many issues need to be resolved first, says Amit Mitra

Kolkata: State finance minister Amit Mitra on Saturday said “many issues needed to be resolved to make an ideal Goods and Services Tax (GST)”. The Centre plans to bring GST into effect from July 1.

Speaking on the sidelines of a pre-Budget interactive session with chambers of commerce and associations at Town Hall, Mr Mitra, who is also the chairman of the Empowered Commitee of State Finance Ministers on GST, said there are many unsettled issues. “Some 13 specific sections of law require to be settled,” he said, adding “We do not want a flawed GST”.

One of the unresolved issues is fixation of unknown number of products at 15 per cent, on which “there has been no meeting so far,” he said. “The tsunami of demonetisation has led to everyone’s compensation going up. Earlier it was thought that fewer states would have to be compensated but now compensation has to be given to more states,” Mr Mitra said.

He seemingly took credit for mending the Centre’s stand over GST regulations like ‘equal’ treatment with the Centre on Integrated GST Network, tax on territorial waters and dual control on businessmen up to Rs 1.5 crore. “We have finally been able to extract our demand for single state control on 90 per cent of GST taxpayers falling in the turnover bracket of Rs 20 lakh and Rs 150 lakh,” Mitra said. There are roughly around 28 lakh traders in the country that fall under this bracket, of whom around 70,000-80,000 are in Bengal.