NEW DELHI: President Pranab Mukherjee signed the historic flagship Goods and Services Tax Bill . Finally, the Goods and Services Tax Bill is coming to reality after a long ten years.
This bill will eliminate the need for a broad range of Central and State Taxes. Once the GST bill is implemented, it will usher in one tax transparent regime for the entire country.
With the President granting approval to the long-pending GST bill, the bill now turns to the courts of respective states. This is because there are some states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu which has not yet passed the bill yet.
18 States Ratified the GST Bill:-
As many as 18 states from the overall 31 have already ratified the GST bill. It requires ratification from nearly 50 percent of the states since the GST is a constitutional amendment bill. The flagship GST bill was sent to the President’s secretariat after 17 states ratified the bill. Interestingly, Assam, ruled by the BJP was first to approve the bill.
Andra Pradesh had vetted the GST bill, the remaining states which have already ratified the legislation include – Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Nagaland, Maharashtra, Haryana, Sikkim, Mizoram, Telangana, Goa, Odisha, and Rajasthan. Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh assembly ratified the bill today thus increasing the tally to 18. Meanwhile, Kerala finance minister Thomas Issac said that the GST bill would be passed in the next Assembly session itself.Commenting on the President’s nod, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia disclosed that the government is ahead of schedule for implementation of GST.
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