Common man to benefit from GST; states to gain from Day 1, says Arun Jaitley

New Delhi: The proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) will benefit most of the states from Day 1 and industries and common man also stand to gain, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.

Speaking at the meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his Ministry, he said GST will help reduce tax-on-tax and will be beneficial to consumers.

"GST will benefit most of the states from Day 1, especially consumer states," he said. As the volume of trade expands and growth momentum picks up, every state will benefit with the rise in their revenue collections, he added.

A Constitutional Amendment Bill on GST was introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 19. It would be taken up by Parliament in the next session. Government intends to roll out GST, which will subsume most of the indirect taxes, from April 1, 2016.

Jaitley said GST will be beneficial to the Centre, states, industrialists, manufacturers, the common man and the country at large since it will bring more transparency, better compliance, increase in GDP growth and revenue collections.

He also said government was open for any suggestion for making further improvements on the GST Bill. "GST is a continuing process which would further evolve and improve with time," said a statement quoted him as saying.

To remove apprehensions among states about the fall in their revenue collections, provisions have been made in the GST Bill. The government, he added, was in favour of strengthening the cooperative federalism and will make all out efforts to evolve as much consensus as possible on GST.

The Finance Minister further said the Centre will compensate states for any loss of revenue arising on account of implementation of the GST for a period of five years. The statement said most of the committee members supported the decision of the government to implement GST.

"They said since the number of Departments will also reduce in due course, which, in turn, will lead to less corruption," it added. Members also made suggestions, including that the Centre may bring out a 'white paper' giving details on revenue to the Centre, states and who will be the ultimate beneficiaries.

A member also suggested the Finance Commission may be made a permanent body for allocation of funds to states. Members who attended the meeting include, Anoop Mishra, SPY Reddy, Poonam Mahajan, Sriram Malyadri, Anil Desai, Satish Chandra Misra, Rajkumar Dhoot and Sukhendu Sekhar Roy.