Amidst all the controversies and debates, finally, the 122nd Constitutional Amendment Bill on GST has been passed by the Rajya Sabha yesterday. With this, the chances of implementing GST by the government from next financial year have been increased. The government was hardly waiting for this since a long time.
The implementation of the Goods and Services Tax is considered as one of the biggest tax reform in the history of India. The Bill aims to bring uniformity in all the indirect taxes currently prevailing in India.
It took 5 hours of debate to pass the bill with the assent of 202 members while 13 opposed the bill. The members of AIDMK walked out at the time of voting since they opposed the billalleging that the bill is against the concept of basic structure.
“In accordance with the precedence, if a bill is taxing bill, the bill section of the bill section of the parliament recommends to be finance bill, otherwise a money bill. We have no intention to bypass the constitution.” Said the Finance minister Arun Jaitely.
He further replied to the state’s losing revenue to GST by stating that the state governments were not ready to trust in government when the centre gave them an assurance that they will be compensated. As a result of which the government “may” compensate become “shall” and full compensation was agreed for 5 years.
He further expressed that “I am sure the enactment of the GST will empower the states. It will increase revenue of the states and the central government. It will provide a boost to the economy. It will bing down tax evasion and eliminate tax on tax.”
