New Delhi: The empowered group of state
finance ministers will come out with a draft paper on Goods
and Services Tax (GST) within a month to facilitate
implementation of the new tax regime by the April 1, 2010.
"The responses of the states will be obtained (on the
discussion paper) and the draft will be finalised for
discussion. We are trying to do that within the end of this
month," empowered group chairman Asim Dasgupta told reporters
after a meeting here.
The Group will hold discussions with the stakeholders,
including trade and industry, after finalisation of the draft,
he added.
The draft, for which a joint working group was
constituted last month, would deal with important issues like
legislation, rules and procedures of the GST.
The group for preparing the draft comprises officials
from the Finance Ministry and state revenue officials.
The proposed indirect tax regime will do away with most
of the indirect taxes like excise and services levied by
the centre and subsume state levies like VAT and Octroi.
Bureau Report
First Published: Thursday, October 08, 2009, 16:11