Odisha Govt. welcomes GST Bill, says Finance Minister Pradip Amat

The State Finance Minister Pradip Amat on Thursday welcomed the essential Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill.

Odisha Finance Minister said, “It is a great pleasure that the Constitution Amendment Bill for GST has been passed in the Rajya Sabha yesterday. The efforts of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers have been fruitful”.

“GST is an important milestone in the reforms of indirect taxes in India and Government of Odisha is in favour of GST. It is a consumption based taxation system. It will bring uniform tax rate throughout country and will help in seamless movement of goods and services across the States”, said the Finance Minister..

“Implementation of GST will provide more relief to Economy, Industry, Trade and Agriculture as VAT, CST, Entry tax and Entertainment tax will subsumed in GST. State will also be empowered to tax on services” said Amat.

“Govt. of India will take steps for enactment of CGST and IGST Act and the States to enact SGST Act. Our Government have raised the issue to levy additional non rebatable cess i.e. Green Tax on minerals and other polluting goods sold in course of interstate trade and commerce to compensate the adverse effect of pollution” said the Finance Minister.

He said the State government was also demanding levy of tax on tobacco products by the States over and above the GST as the Central Govt. will tax separately as per entry 84 of the Union List of the Constitution. Since GST is likely to be implemented from the year 2017-18, we are demanding payment of CST compensation upto Financial Year 2016-17”.