By IANS,
Kolkata : The central government and the states have failed to reach a consensus on the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) despite a four-year dialogue, a top union finance ministry official said Wednesday.
“For the GST, we have been talking to the states for the last four years. In 2007, the first discussion started. Our demand was that there will be only one rate. The states said no, there has to be dual rate,” revenue secretary Sunil Mitra said at a programme organised by the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce.
He said that the states disagreed with the central government on two issues – the threshold level of the tax and the number of goods to be exempted.
He said that till now, 16 states had agreed with the GST rollout.
“We will continue to talk…the empowered committee, headed by (West Bengal finance minister) Asim Dasgupta, is trying hard to find convergence,” he said.
Implementation of the GST would lead to a uniform goods and services tax regime across the country by unifying all central and state levies such as sales tax and excise.