Top leaders of the main Opposition party, the BJP on Monday met finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in a bid to break the deadlock over the rollout of Goods and Services Tax (GST). BJP?s parliamentary party chairman LK Advani, leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were hosted by the finance minister as he tried to win over the BJP-ruled states opposing the GST regime as in its proposed form.
GST ? a multi-point tax on value-addition with the facility of input tax credit ? is expected to subsume most of the indirect taxes at the central and state level, including excise duty, service tax and and state VAT, but not the basic customs duty that represents import tariff.
Sources said that Monday?s meeting with the finance minister was also used by the BJP?s leadership to lodge a strong protest with the finance minister over the proposed withdrawal of a tax holiday to Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. ?BJP leader said the decision to withdraw the tax holiday three years before it expires was not fair, all in order to rollout GST according to a certain time table,? said a source.
As for the scheduled GST roll out from April 1 next year, BJP leaders assured the finance minister that opposition to it by some states, incidentally ruled by the BJP, was not a political problem but an issue of ?federal autonomy?. What is being considered now is a dual GST with central and state components on the same base of goods and services.
Mukherjee had met chief ministers of Congress-ruled states a fortnight ago on a similar confidence building exercise, and to add muscle to his armory while tackling reluctant opposition-ruled states. He also wanted a broad consensus on the matter before a meeting of the empowered group of finance ministers to be held on Wednesday, July 21.