April 1 deadline for GST ruled out; stalemate continues

On the ninth meeting, GST council failed to decide who will administer the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The state and center came clashing as the states seek sole powers to control assessees with annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore and centre is not in favour of a horizontal split as it feels states do not have the expertise to administer levies like service tax.

Finance Ministry Arun Jaitleywas heading the GST Council and had hoped to resolve the pending issues to get the new indirect tax regime rolling from April 1st so that there was no need to include indirect taxes in the Budget.

Looking at the resent scenario, GST rollout seems unlikely by April 1 now with no consensus emerging in the meeting. The next date for the meeting hasn't been decided yet.

The uncertainty over the date of the GST rollout has become a big problem for this year's Budget. The Budget was not expected to include excise duties and service tax as the government was hopeful of rolling out GST from April 1, 2017.