Parties go into a huddle over GST

Two days before the state legislature’s special session on August 29 to ratify the GST central bill, political parties including BJP, Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP are holding meetings and discussions to brief their MLAs on the issue.

Sources in the state legislature said that the ratification is expected to be a short-duration affair as both Houses are expected to merely ratify the one-line resolution moved in both Houses. They added that barring Sena, all other political parties had agreed to unanimously ratify the GST bill passed by Parliament earlier this month.

Sena president Uddhav Thackeray convened a meeting of senior party ministers and group leaders in the state legislature to decide on the party stand on ratification of the bill. Despite finance and planning minister Sudhir Mungantiwar having attempted to dispel Sena’s doubts regarding compensation to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on the issue of Rs 7,500 crore Octroi largely from imported crude oil, Sena continues to have reservations about it.

As for NCP, on August 28, it will be holding a briefing session for its legislators over dinner at the official residence of leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde. According to sources, four former finance ministers from NCP — Jayant Patil, Dilip Walse-Patil, Sunil Tatkare and Ajit Pawar — are expected to brief party legislators on the GST bill over dinner. NCP sources argued that the new tax regime was bound to fuel inflation in respect of certain goods and services as uniformity in taxation is achieved in due course of time.

Tax experts too pointed out the many loopholes in the GST bill. Chartered accountant and tax expert Deepak Thakkar opined that the government was rushing with the implementation of the GST without proper consultations and briefing to all stakeholders on the impact of uniform GST. Mr Thakkar argued that even though the government aimed at creating a single window system and convergence of central and state taxes, the fact remained that traders and the service sector would still have to deal with central GST, state GST or inter-state GST.